Sara Glover 's people , especially a wealthy aunt in Montreal , had wanted to take the child , but Old Man Shaw grew almost fierce over the suggestion . He would give his baby to no one . A woman was hired to look after the house , but it was the father who cared for the baby in the main . He was as tender and faithful and deft as a woman . Sara never missed a mother 's care , and she grew up into a creature of life and light and beauty , a constant delight to all who knew her . She had a way of embroidering life with stars . She was dowered with all the charming characteristics of both parents , with a resilient vitality and activity which had pertained to neither of them . 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 XXXXX it was best for her to go , was inexorable .
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