She had grown too old, she said, with her delightful little laugh, to be of much use in the larger schools of the more thickly populated sections of the country.

But she was still far too young, she stoutly maintained, to be altogether useless.
Tom Warden, who lived just over the ridge from the schoolhouse, and who was blessed with the largest wife, the largest family, and the most pretentious farm in the county, had kinsfolk somewhere in Illinois.
Through these relatives of the Ozark farmer Miss Susan Wakefield had learned of the needs of the Elbow Rock school, and so, finally, had come into the hills.

It was the influential Tom who secured for her the modest position.

It was the motherly Mrs.Tom who made her at home in the Warden household.

It was the Warden boys and girls who first called her "Auntie Sue." But it was Auntie Sue herself who won so large a place in the hearts of the simple mountain folk of the district that she held her position year after year, until she finally gave up teaching altogether.
Not one of her Ozark friends ever came to know in detail the history of this remarkable woman's life.