Shirley was awake early that morning, almost too excited to sleep but fitfully even through the night. Now that the thing was done and they were actually moved into a barn she began to have all sorts of fears and compunctions concerning it. She seemed to see her delicate mother shrink as from a blow when she first learned that they had come to this. Try as she would to bring back all the sensible philosophy that had caused her to enter into this affair in the first place, she simply could not feel anything but trouble. She longed to rush into her mother's room, tell her all about it, and get the dreaded episode over. But anyhow it was inevitable now. They were moved. They had barely enough money to pay the cartage and get things started before next pay-day. There was nothing for it but to take her mother there, even if she did shrink from the idea.
Of course mother always had been sensible, and all that; but somehow the burden of the great responsibility of decision rested so heavily upon her young shoulders that morning that it seemed as if she could not longer bear the strain.
They still had a good fire in the kitchen range, and Shirley hastened to the kitchen, prepared a delicate piece of toast, a poached egg, a cup of tea, and took it to her mother's room, tiptoeing lightly lest she still slept.
But the mother was awake and glad to see her. She had been awake since the first streak of dawn had crept into the little back window. She had the look of one who was girded for the worst. But, when she saw her daughter's face, the mother in her triumphed over the woman.
"What's the trouble, little girl? Has something happened?"
The tenderness in her voice was the last straw that broke Shirley's self-control. The tears suddenly sprang into her eyes, and her lip trembled.
"Oh mother!" she wailed, setting the tray down quickly on a box and fumbling for her handkerchief. "I'm so worried! I'm so afraid you won't like what we've done, and then what shall we do?"
"I shall like it!" said the mother with instant determination. "Don't for a minute think of anything else. Having done something irrevocably, never look back and think you might have done something better. You did the best you could, or you thought you did, anyway; and there didn't seem to be anything else at the time. So now just consider it was the very best thing in the world, and don't go to fretting about it. There'll be something nice about it, I'm sure, and goodness knows we've had enough unpleasant things here; so we needn't expect beds of roses. We are just going to make it nice, little girl. Remember that! We are going to like it. There's a tree there, you say; so, when we find things we don't like, we'll just go out and look up at our tree, and say, 'We've got you, anyway, and we're glad of it!'"