Kildares of Storm Part 72

Kate said, with her hand on his, "Sometimes a little boy is right, dear."

There have been great changes on Misty Ridge since Kate went to live in the mountains. The work Dr. Benoix started alone has grown beyond belief, and the influence of it extends now far beyond his immediate locality.

He has many other a.s.sistants than his wife, though none more able--a young oculist who specializes in trachoma, and makes no complaint of lack of practice; two trained teachers to help in the cla.s.srooms; even a clergyman fresh from his seminary to take the place left vacant by Philip, greatly to the satisfaction of Bates the peddler, and somewhat to the satisfaction of Dr. Benoix himself.

As he once explained to the visiting Bishop: "I will undertake to treat as best I can any ill of the human body or the human mind; but when it comes to the human soul--that calls for a bolder man than I am!"

The State is beginning to take notice of Misty Ridge, and offers of a.s.sistance come more rapidly than Kate can decline them. She does decline them; for the work there is Jacques Benoix' work, and she guards it for him jealously, to be his monument in the eyes of men when the great spirit that created it shall have pa.s.sed into some other sphere of usefulness.

She herself, for all her share in the life of Jacques' people, their birth, their death, and the hard interval between, is nothing more to the dwellers on Misty Ridge than "Mrs. Teacher"--sometimes "Ole Mrs.

Teacher," now that the glow of her hair is touched with gray, and beautiful lines are growing about her beautiful eyes.

But it is a name she loves above all other names--"Ole Mrs. Teacher."

She wears it far more proudly than she ever wore her former t.i.tle of "the Madam."