This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and

tools together in one place. It's your digital HQ where you can increase productivity,

enable flexibility and automate workflows. Plus, Slack is full of game-changing features,

like huddles for quick check-ins or Slack Connect, which helps you connect with partners

inside and outside of your company. Slack. Where the future works, get started at

Slack.com slash DHQ. Chapter 40. The Valley of the Shadow.

When the first bitterness was over, the family accepted the inevitable and tried to bear

it cheerfully, helping one another by the increased affection, which comes to bind households,

tenderly together in times of trouble. They put away their grief and each did his or

her part toward making that last year a happy one. The pleasantest room in the house was

set apart for Beth, and in it was gathered everything that she most loved, flowers,

pictures, her piano, the little work table, and the beloved pussies.

Fathers' best books found their way there. Mother's Easy Chair, Joe's desk, Amy's finest

sketches. And every day, Meg brought her babies on a loving pilgrimage to make sunshine

for Auntie Beth. John quietly set apart a little sum that he might enjoy the pleasure of keeping

the invalid supplied with the fruit she loved and longed for.

Old Hannah never weiried of concocting dainty dishes to tempt a capricious appetite, dropping

tears as she worked, and from across the sea came little gifts and cheerful letters,

seeming to bring breasts of warmth and fragrance from lands that no-no winter. Here cherished

like a household saint in its shrine, sat Beth, tranquil and busy as ever, for nothing

could change the sweet, unselfish nature, and even while preparing to leave life, she

tried to make it happier for those who should remain behind.

...