Anna Shaw was now the chief support of the little home in the wilderness, and the pitiful sum earned by teaching had to be eked out by boarding the workers from the lumber-camps and taking in sewing, in order to pay the taxes and meet the bare necessities of life. With calico selling for fifty cents a yard, coffee for a dollar a pound, and everything else in proportion, one cannot but marvel how the women and children managed to exist. They struggled along, with hearts heavy with anxiety for loved ones on the battle-fields, to do as best they could the work of the men--gathering in the crops, grinding the corn, and caring for the cattle--in addition to the homekeeping tasks of the daily round. It takes, perhaps, more courage and endurance to be a faithful member of the home army than it does to march into battle with bands playing and colors flying. When, at the end of the war, the return of the father and brothers freed her from the responsibility for the upkeep of the home, Anna Shaw determined upon a bold step. Realizing that years must pass before she could save enough from her earnings as country school-teacher to go to college, she went to live with a married sister in Big Rapids and entered as a pupil in the high school there. The preceptress, Miss Lucy Foot, who was a college graduate and a woman of unusual strength of character, took a lively interest in the new student and encouraged her ambition to preach by putting her in the classes in public speaking and debating. "I vividly remember my first recitation in public," said Miss Shaw. "I was so overcome by the impressiveness of the audience and the occasion, and so appalled at my own boldness in standing there, that I sank in a faint on the platform. Sympathetic classmates carried me out and revived me, after which they naturally assumed that the entertainment I furnished was over for the evening. I, however, felt that if I let that failure stand against me I could never afterward speak in public; and within ten minutes, notwithstanding the protests of my friends, I was back in the hall and beginning my recitation a second time. The audience gave me its eager attention. Possibly it hoped to see me topple off the platform again, but nothing of the sort occurred. I went through the recitation with self-possession and received some friendly applause at the end." After this maiden speech, the young girl appeared frequently in public, now in school debates, now in amateur theatricals. It was as if the Fates had her case particularly in hand at this time, for everything seemed to further the secret longing that had possessed her ever since the days when she had preached to the trees in the forest.