Jack approached,
offered her a home and good wages, and brought her to me.
I could have hugged her for very joy, but I restrained myself and
advised her to stay with us for awhile, saying the Ehrenberg
climate was quite as good as that of Tucson.
She remarked quietly: "You do not look as if it agreed with you
very well, ma'am.''
Then I told her of my young child, and my hard journeys, and she
decided to stay until she could earn enough to reach Tucson.
And so Ellen became a member of our Ehrenberg family. She was a
fine, strong girl, and a very good cook, and seemed to be in
perfect health. She said, however, that she had had an obstinate
cough which nothing would reach, and that was why she came to
Arizona. >From that time, things went more smoothly. Some yeast
was procured from the Mexican bakeshop, and Ellen baked bread and
other things, which seemed like the greatest luxuries to us. We
sent the soldier back to his company at Fort Yuma, and began to
live with a degree of comfort.
I looked at Ellen as my deliverer, and regarded her coming as a
special providence, the kind I had heard about all my life in New
England, but had never much believed in.
