354 Words before Church

The night before she was to board the train to Lancaster, she had laid down full of delighted hopes for the future. She had barely slept, so full of excitement was she. In her mind, she painted a compelling picture of what her new position would be like, of how she would inspire and encourage the girls who would so desperately need her and be so grateful that she was ther. Of the relationships, the bonds she would forge with them. Of the growth in them that she would nurture. Of the significance she would make. Oh, certainly there would be difficulties, but in her eagerness, she looked forward to the challenges, knowing she could meet them, and confident of how rewarding working through the obsticles would be. She dreamed up entire conversations, she dissected her lesson plans, tweaking and adjusting her presentations to make them more meaningful. She reworked all she knew of what difficulties her students would need to overcome to be the bright young ladies she knew she could draw out. She imagined herself becoming a key confidant of the superintendent. She wooed the board with her insights and her understanding and became a regular attendant of their meetings. Oh, not right away of course, but in time, as the result of her labors spoke for themselves, as she made an impression when the superintendent sat in on her lessons, when she humbly, but confidently went to the superintendent, and then to the board, with a well-thought idea of a minor change that might be made in the running of the cottage. Oh, and of course the first year would be an adjustment period for everyone. No one, she included, expected her brilliance to shine forth in that first year. But by the second year, that would be when the ideas would come. And of course, the spring reviews would have already revealed the progress her students had made. In time, in a short amount of time, her enterprises would begin to pay their dividends. And these were the thoughts that filled her head the night before she boarded her train.