And the growing better was pure enjoyment.
Once, when Kirsty was absent for a little while, Mrs.Mitchell brought me some gruel.
"The gruel's not nice," I said.
"It's perfectly good, Ranald, and there's no merit in complaining when everybody's trying to make you as comfortable as they can," said the Kelpie.
"Let me taste it," said Kirsty, who that moment entered the room.--"It's not fit for anybody to eat," she said, and carried it away, Mrs.Mitchell following her with her nose horizontal.
Kirsty brought the basin back full of delicious gruel, well boiled, and supplemented with cream.

I am sure the way in which she transformed that basin of gruel has been a lesson to me ever since as to the quality of the work I did.

No boy or girl can have a much better lesson than--to do what must be done as well as it can be done.

Everything, the commonest, well done, is something for the progress of the world; that is, lessens, if by the smallest hair's-breadth, the distance between it and God.
Oh, what a delight was that first glowing summer afternoon upon which I was carried out to the field where Turkey was herding the cattle! I could not yet walk.

That very morning, as I was being dressed by Kirsty, I had insisted that I could walk quite well, and Kirsty had been over-persuaded into letting me try.