This volume is a double with two gentle stories written about ten years apart. The first can be summed up by a phrase which aptly depicts the times in a few words. "It was an age that was geared to great efforts for small returns.' How very different from current times in which we expect a large return for every little effort. Miss Clare was a school teacher who began her work just after the turn of the last century. It was a difficult era with society in a post industrial revolution rural poverty that affected many.

The story follows Miss Clare through the war to end all wars and changes from gas to electric, horse to car, kite to rocket science. These were part and parcel of Miss Clare's existence and none of it challenged her equanimity.

The second story chronicles the death of octogenarian Emily Davis. As the news diffuses to many people who remember Miss Emily Davis their fond memories of how this stalwart school teacher touched and improved their lives, are shared. If the reader can ever seeing him or herself as leaving such footsteps in the sand they blessed indeed. Emily was Miss Clare's lifelong friend and fellow teacher. There are many parallels in these two lives, part of which is the same struggles of losing the loves of their lives, teaching in small country schools and the ardent love of nature in the country and all it has to offer. ( )