When she was ten years old she had packed all hirelings off , and kept house for her father for six delightful years -- years in which they were father and daughter , brother and sister , and `` chums . '' Sara never went to school , but her father saw to her education after a fashion of his own . When their work was done they lived in the woods and fields , in the little garden they had made on the sheltered side of the house , or on the shore , where sunshine and storm were to them equally lovely and beloved . Never was comradeship more perfect or more wholly satisfactory . `` Just wrapped up in each other , '' said White Sands folk , half-enviously , half-disapprovingly . When Sara was sixteen Mrs. Adair , the wealthy aunt aforesaid , pounced down on White Sands in a glamour of fashion and culture and outer worldliness . She bombarded Old Man Shaw with such arguments that he had to succumb . It was a shame that a girl like Sara should grow up in a place like White Sands , `` with no advantages and no education , '' said Mrs. Adair scornfully , not understanding that wisdom and knowledge are two entirely different things . `` At least let me give my dear sister 's child what I would have given my own daughter if I had had one , '' she pleaded tearfully . `` Let me take her with me and send her to a good school for a few years . Then , if she wishes , she may come back to you , of course . '' Privately , Mrs. Adair did not for a moment believe that Sara would want to come back to White Sands , and her queer old father , after three years of the life she would give her . Old Man Shaw yielded , influenced thereto not at all by Mrs. Adair 's readily flowing tears , but greatly by his conviction that justice to Sara demanded it . Sara herself did not want to go ; she protested and pleaded ; but her father , having become convinced that it was best for her to go , was inexorable . Everything , even her own feelings , must give way to that . But she was to come back to him without let or hindrance when her `` schooling '' was done . It was only on having this most clearly understood that Sara would consent to go at all . Her last words , called back to her father through her tears as she and her aunt drove down the lane , were , `` I 'll be back , daddy . In three years I 'll be back . Do n't cry , but just look forward to that . ''
He had looked forward to it through the three long , lonely XXXXX that followed , in all of which he never saw his darling .
Adair Sands Sara Shaw chums hindrance old storm worldliness years