Perhaps the Master of Life always rewards those who do
their little faithfully by giving them some greater opportunity
for faithfulness. Certainly, it is a comfort, wherever we are, to
say to ourselves:--
"Thou camest not to thy place by accident,
It is the very place God meant for thee."
IX.
MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS.
THE pleasure we found in making new acquaintances among our
workmates arose partly from their having come from great
distances, regions unknown to us, as the northern districts of
Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont were, in those days of stage-
coach traveling, when rail-roads had as yet only connected the
larger cities with one another.
It seemed wonderful to me to be talking with anybody who had
really seen mountains and lived among them. One of the younger
girls, who worked beside me during my very first days in the
mill, had come from far up near the sources of the Merrimack, and
she told me a great deal about her home, and about farm-life
among the hills. I listened almost with awe when she said that
she lived in a valley where the sun set at four o'clock, and
where the great snowstorms drifted in so that sometimes they did
not see a neighbor for weeks.
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