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She was happier that winter than she had been for years, in spite of household griefs and burdens. Her life, rough, meagre, limited as it was, in some curious way satisfied her, because it was free. Only five months after her mother's death she was complete mistress of her father's house and the ruler of his family. She could count on his authority to back her up if she ordered about Tamar and Ruth, while the younger children naturally looked up to her. At meeting, too, though she did not rule, she was looked up to, standing before the Brethren every Sunday to read the Word. Will Backshell was still away, and a voice within her whispered how good it would be if the rheumatism which had laid him low did not leave him in the spring.

She also revelled in her emancipation from farm-work. Her household duties, as she understood them, were soon done. There was no meal to prepare till the evening, and during the day she would often wander about the countryside with gangs of children and young people, who were unable to find work on the winter farms, and had been driven out of their homes by lack of food and fire. They were all very rough and rather wild, these gangs of hungry children, but they had their fun together, their adventures and games, roaming over the wintry fields, crashing through the wet, bare thickets of the woods, living together some vague, indefinite daydream of freedom and plenty, as their bumpkin imaginations spun a web of country superstitions and common things.