The Tangled Threads

The Tangled Threads, by
Eleanor H. Porter

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Porter
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Title: The Tangled Threads
Author: Eleanor H. Porter

Release Date: September 19, 2006 [eBook #19336]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
TANGLED THREADS***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE TANGLED THREADS

by
ELEANOR H. PORTER

New York The Christian Herald Bible House
Copyright, 1919, by Eleanor H. Porter All Rights Reserved

Contents
A DELAYED HERITAGE THE FOLLY OF WISDOM CRUMBS A
FOUR-FOOTED FAITH AND A TWO A MATTER OF SYSTEM
ANGELUS THE APPLE OF HER EYE A MUSHROOM OF
COLLINGSVILLE THAT ANGEL BOY THE LADY IN BLACK
THE SAVING OF DAD MILLIONAIRE MIKE'S THANKSGIVING
WHEN MOTHER FELL ILL THE GLORY AND THE SACRIFICE
THE DALTONS AND THE LEGACY THE LETTER THE
INDIVISIBLE FIVE THE ELEPHANT'S BOARD AND KEEP A
PATRON OF ART WHEN POLLY ANN PLAYED SANTA CLAUS
The stories in this volume are here reprinted by the courteous
permission of the publishers of the periodicals in which they first
appeared,--Lippincott's Magazine, The Metropolitan Magazine,
McCall's Magazine, Harper's Magazine, The American Magazine,
Progress Magazine, The Arena, The Christian Endeavor World, The
Congregationalist and Christian World, The Housewife, Harper's Bazar
[Transcriber's note: Bazaar?], Judge's Library Magazine, The New
England Magazine, People's Short Story Magazine, The Christian
Herald, The Ladies' World.

The Tangled Threads
A Delayed Heritage

When Hester was two years old a wheezy hand-organ would set her
eyes to sparkling and her cheeks to dimpling, and when she was twenty
the "Maiden's Prayer," played by a school-girl, would fill her soul with
ecstasy.
To Hester, all the world seemed full of melody. Even the clouds in the
sky sailed slowly along in time to a stately march in her brain, or
danced to the tune of a merry schottische that sounded for her ears
alone. And when she saw the sunset from the hill behind her home,
there was always music then--low and tender if the colors were soft and
pale-tinted, grand and awful if the wind blew shreds and tatters of
storm-clouds across a purpling sky. All this was within Hester; but
without--
There had been but little room in Hester's life for music. Her days were
an endless round of dish-washing and baby-tending--first for her
mother, later for herself. There had been no money for music lessons,
no time for piano practice. Hester's childish heart had swelled with
bitter envy whenever she saw the coveted music roll swinging from
some playmate's hand. At that time her favorite "make-believe" had
been to play at going for a music lesson, with a carefully modeled roll
of brown paper suspended by a string from her fingers.
Hester was forty now. Two sturdy boys and a girl of nine gave her three
hungry mouths to feed and six active feet to keep in holeless stockings.
Her husband had been dead two years, and life was a struggle and a
problem. The boys she trained rigorously, giving just measure of love
and care; but the girl--ah, Penelope should have that for which she
herself had so longed. Penelope should take music lessons!
During all those nine years since Penelope had come to her, frequent
dimes and quarters, with an occasional half-dollar, had found their way
into an old stone jar on the top shelf in the pantry. It had been a dreary
and pinching economy that had made possible this horde of silver, and
its effects had been only too visible in Hester's turned and mended
garments, to say nothing of her wasted figure and colorless cheeks.
Penelope was nine now, and Hester deemed it a fitting time to begin the
spending of her treasured wealth.

First, the instrument: it must be a rented one, of course. Hester went
about the labor of procuring it in a state of exalted bliss that was in a
measure compensation for her long years of sacrifice.
Her task did not prove to be a hard one. The widow Butler, about to go
South for the winter, was more than glad to leave her piano in Hester's
tender care, and the dollar a month rent which Hester at first insisted
upon paying was finally cut in half, much to the widow Butler's
satisfaction and Hester's grateful delight. This much accomplished,
Hester turned her steps toward the white cottage wherein lived
Margaret Gale, the music teacher.
Miss Gale, careful, conscientious, but of limited experience, placed her
services at the disposal of all who could pay