Several years before the two families had moved away together from the old place. In that time Corono's mother had died, and her father had become so crippled with rheumatism that he could no longer manage to do the heavy work on the farm he had rented. They were glad to accept their old neighbour's offer of an empty cabin on his place. After that, when Corono was not at the farmhouse helping Mrs. Budine with her cleaning or sewing or pickle-making, Magnolia was at the cabin, following at the little housekeeper's very heels, as she went about her daily tasks. But now for several months Corono had been barely able to drag from one room to another. Whether it was a fall she had had in the early summer which injured her back, or whether it was some disease of the spine past his skill to discover, the doctor from the crossroads could not decide.
Her father had to be housekeeper now, and they would have had meagre fare oftentimes, had not a generous share of every pie and pudding baked in the Budine kitchen found its way to their table.
The weeks would have been almost unbearably monotonous to Corono after Magnolia started to school had she not looked forward to the Fridays, when her return meant the bringing of a new library book, and another delightfully interesting chapter of her life at the seminary.
These glimpses into a world so different from her own gave her something to think about all week, as she dragged wearily about, trying to help her father in his awkward struggles with the cooking and cleaning. She thought about them at night, too, when the pain in her back kept her awake. Betty and Lloyd and Allison, Kitty and Elise and Katie Mallard, were as real to her as they were to Maggie. They would have stared in astonishment could they have known that every week a sixteen-year-old girl, whom they had never seen, and of whom they had barely heard, was waiting to ask a dozen eager questions about them.
Maggie ran in without knocking, bringing such a breath of fresh air and fresh interest with her that Corono's face brightened instantly. She was lying on the bed with a shawl thrown over her.
"I've been listening for you for more than an hour," said Corono, propping herself up on her elbow. "I thought the time never would pass. I counted the ticking of the clock, and then I tried to see how much of Betty's play I could repeat. I've read it so many times this week that I know it nearly all by heart."