I should like for you to see my school room and know the boys and girls. I would like for you to be associated with certain other experiences of mine. I'd like--but what's the use? I feel as though, if or when I need you, you will be my friend. In other words, I trust you.
The glorious fun of being poor is that the little things that come your way are greatly appreciated. Now Big Creek is my Brook Cherith; and the school children are the ravens during the stress of high prices incident to the war. They not only bring bread and meat but a few modest dresses and a few books and magazines. Should the brook fail and the ravens receive other commands, Granny and I can depend upon the unfailing jar of meal and the cruse of oil for our daily bread; and should you like to play the part of Elijah to the widow and the orphan, you are welcome to your share. We will give you a cup of water and make you a little cake.
I have even had a beau and a proposal of marriage by a red-headed man from Red Bird. I answered: "I have no idea of considering such a proposition for several years as I expect first to graduate at the University of Kentucky. When my Prince Charming comes wooing, he may come with empty pockets but he must be able to read and write." The next day Sandy came to my school, but I refused to take him in. He has since spread the information that "Jeannette does not want 'a feller' but expects to remain a 'school marm'"--and so I shall until a real man comes along. Sandy Blair is as near the "sweet evening breeze" kind as we have up here. I call him my knight of the pink shirt and green store clothes. He never misses a dance; and Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed as he then is.
When the evening is warm and the moon full I often spend an hour or two on Big Rock; and musing by night, with the water and moon for company, I feel happy and queer and both. Remembrance frequently retenders that night of long ago; and I hear you speaking in a voice no bigger than the heart of a whisper. The reason it is your voice is because you gave me my first doll and what is a little girl's life without a doll?
The night of October twenty-fourth, the night of the day you were wounded, I was out on the rock a long while; and never before had I heard your voice nor seen you as distinctly as then. On that night you and I held quite a conversation; and this may be the mystical explanation why I was the one with you as you passed through the valley of the shadow. Life on Big Creek has taught me, that not alone to the Elijahs, to the shepherds of the hills and to the Jean d'Arcs come voices and visitation. All who will may hear.