Scene Description

On the front veranda of a rectangular farmhouse, somewhat pretentious for its time and place, stood a woman in expectant attitude. The bleak wind of a spent March day played rudely with the straying ends of her bright, abundant red-brown hair, which she brushed frequently from her careworn face as she peered through the thickening shadows of approaching night. The ice-laden branches of a leafless locust swept the latticed corner behind which she had retreated for protection from the wind. A great white-and-yellow watch-dog crouched expectantly at her feet, whining and wagging his tail.

Indoors, the big living-room echoed with the laughter and prattle of many voices. At one end of a long table, littered with books and slates and dimly lighted by flickering tallow dips, sat the older children of the household, busy with their lessons for the morrow's recitations. A big fire of maple logs roared on the hearth in harmony with the roaring of the wind outside.