The remaining acreage was in timber.
The price, under the kindly and expert supervision of Tom Warden, was fifteen dollars an acre.

But Auntie Sue always laughingly insisted that she really paid fifty cents an acre for the land and fourteen dollars and a half an acre for the sunsets.
The tillable land, except for the garden, she "let out on shares," always under the friendly guardianship of neighbor Tom; while Tom's boys cared for the little garden in season, and saw to it that the woodpile was always ample and ready for the stove.

And, in addition to these fixed and regular homely services, there were many offerings of helpful hands whenever other needs arose; for, as time passed, there came to be in all the Elbow Rock district scarce a man, young or old, who did not now and then honor himself by doing some little job for Auntie Sue; while the women and girls, in the same neighborly spirit, brought from their own humble households many tokens of their loving thoughtfulness.
And never did one visit that little log house by the river without the consciousness of something received from the silvery-haired old teacher--a something intangible, perhaps, which they could not have expressed in words, but which, nevertheless, enriched the lives of those simple mountain people with a very real joy and a very tangible happiness.
For six years, Auntie Sue continued teaching the Elbow Rock school;--climbing the hill in the morning from her log house by the river to the cabin schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain-side above; returning in the late afternoon, when her day's work was over, down the winding road to her little home, there to watch, from the porch that overlooked the river, the sunset in the evening.

And every year the daily climb grew a little harder; the days of work grew a little longer; she went down the hill in the afternoon a little slower.

And every year the sunsets were to her eyes more beautiful; the evening skies to her understanding glowed with richer meaning; the twilight hours filled her heart with a deeper peace.
And so, at last, her teaching days were over; that is, she taught no more in the log schoolhouse in the clearing on the mountain-side.