When one reads this account, one pictures the strong vivid life of this sound generous-hearted girl. It seems glorious to be so able and so willing. What, then, will be the surprise when on looking down the page a little farther one sees in the handwriting of the friend who had asked her to write an account of one of her working days, a paragraph like this: "The writer of the above is a cripple, getting about with the aid of a crutch. She entered the Institute this fall and pays half her expenses by working more efficiently than most pupils." After reading this, what words of praise would not sound futile! CHAPTER VII THE OTHER SIDE I cannot bear to think what life would be With high hope shrunk to endurance; stunted aims Like broken lances ground to eating knives; And low achievement doomed from day to day To distaste of its consciousness. _George Eliot._ CHAPTER VII THE OTHER SIDE The experiences related in the last chapters have been purposely laid before the reader with little comment. They make their own impression. They may help to dispel an apprehension lest the girls on the farms should be having too hard a time, or lest when the work in which they are asked to join is closing somewhat too strongly upon their young strength they should be weighed down with the sort of dullness that comes from continued pressure on one nerve. They seem to give an assurance that the country girl's day in many, perhaps the majority, of cases, affords some time for reading and for music; there is a concert in the evening or a spare afternoon hour for the village guest. They encourage us to believe that when the point of joylessness approaches there will be ready a new supply of energy for rejuvenation and refreshment. As long as this state of things exists the case is not so bad. Into this serene atmosphere a bomb must be thrown; for both sides have a right to be heard. The testimony of the Country Girl when she is speaking in favor of country life has been accepted; the same courtesy must be given her when she tells us more or less frankly--frankly when she can be brought to speak at all--what objections some may have to a life which it seems to many ought to be good for any one, and which, if it is not, surely can very easily be made so.