BY LOUIS DODGE 
 
 ROSY 
 
 THE RUNAWAY WOMAN 
 CHILDREN OF THE DESERT 
 BONNIE MAY 
 
 THE SANDMAN'S FOREST 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
 
 ROSY 
 
 KNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. I-O8 ANOELES
 
 ROSY 
 
 By 
 
 LOUIS DODGE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK ::::::: 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published April, 1919
 
 TO 
 MR. AND MRS. HENRY CLAY GIBSON 
 
 2129024
 
 ROSY
 
 ROSY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HE had never known that the darkness could fall so 
 swiftly, so ominously. He was bewildered, a little dis- 
 mayed. He took a shorter hold on the bridle-rein, 
 ignoring the horse's fractious efforts to have its head 
 again. 
 
 He had known as he jogged slowly up the mountain 
 road that the sun must be sinking below the valley 
 horizon, over beyond the mountain. It had sunk be- 
 yond the mountain's summit hours ago. But he had 
 given no thought to the approach of night. His medi- 
 tations were of so bitter and absorbing a kind that 
 they allowed no room for lesser problems. Subcon- 
 sciously he had foreseen that night would overtake him 
 on the road; but there would be a little light from the 
 stars through the trees which wrapped the mountain 
 as with a kind of shabby robe, and in any case it would 
 be possible to see the road, if ever so faintly, when he 
 was ready to turn back. 
 
 Now he realized that every vestige of the road had 
 been blotted out absorbed. He could not even see 
 his horse's head. He seemed suspended in space but 
 for the knowledge that certain muscles and sinews and 
 joints in the living mechanism beneath him were ready 
 to bear him on his way if he would only relax his grip 
 on the rein. He had a realization of the horse's impa- 
 tience as well as of contact with its perfect body. 
 
 Then the first warning of the rain came, in the form 
 
 3
 
 4 ROSY 
 
 of tiny wisps of dampness, like a wet veil bearing the 
 same relation to water that a whisper bears to a full cry. 
 
 The cause of the sudden, extraordinary darkness was 
 explained now. A storm had gathered about the sum- 
 mit of the mountain and was sweeping down upon him. 
 
 There came to him a clear realization of the danger 
 he was in. He called to mind certain parts of the road 
 over which he had climbed. Time and again he had 
 skirted lofty walls of rock on one hand, with sheer 
 abysses a thousand feet deep on the other side. The 
 margin between the road and these dark gulfs was some- 
 times uncomfortably scant a matter of inches. Even 
 at high noon it was the rule of the mountain folk and 
 of all others who climbed the mountain to proceed 
 warily when these narrow passes had to be traversed; 
 and at night such a night as was now falling, especially 
 it would have seemed quite impossible for the trav- 
 eller to escape death if he undertook to thread his way 
 past the bottomless depths which lay only an arm's 
 length away. 
 
 Clearly he could not go back. But was it a simpler 
 matter to try to continue on his way? He knew the 
 road well and he was impelled to admit to himself that 
 the dangers ahead were quite as great as those which 
 lay behind. All the way up to the bench a broad, 
 terrace-like level which circumscribed the mountain 
 some three-fourths of the way to the top he must pass, 
 at intervals, just such ledges as those which marked 
 the course over which he had come. 
 
 The only alternative seemed to be to dismount and 
 remain on the road all night or at least until the clouds 
 broke. But this course he instantly refused to con- 
 sider. He had planned to be back in Pisgah some time 
 during the evening. He must take the late train to 
 Little Rock. He had given his word to a jailer that a
 
 ROSY 5 
 
 certain prisoner would be at the gates of the State 
 prison the next morning and that prisoner was himself. 
 
 In his mind he hopelessly surveyed the houses he 
 had passed as he climbed the mountain. They were too 
 far back, even the nearest, to be reached. As for the 
 prospect before him, it held even less of hope. There 
 were no human habitations between him and the bench, 
 nearly a mile farther up. He had reached an altitude 
 at which nature no longer provided the spacious pockets 
 and fertile bits of plateau where men might wrest a liv- 
 ing from the earth. From now on, up to the bench 
 if he were able by any means to reach that far haven 
 he must expect to be alone save for his horse and the 
 wild, hidden creatures of the mountain. 
 
 It was his horse which solved his problem for him. 
 During his brief halt and his moment of anxious reflec- 
 tion the animal had not ceased to champ impatiently 
 at its bit; and suddenly its headstrong mood was mani- 
 fested so violently that the man was forced to contem- 
 plate a new peril. What if the horse were to become 
 uncontrollable ? 
 
 He remembered that the animal, his father's now, 
 had been owned not long ago by a German farmer who 
 lived up on the mountain bench who had made his 
 living for a good many years by raising fruits and vines 
 and berries on a highly intensified plan. It was evident 
 now that the horse was bent upon reaching its old 
 stable. Indeed, he realized now that when he set out 
 on his aimless ride in the afternoon it had not been his 
 will which had brought him up the mountain road, with 
 its thousands of boyhood associations, but the will of 
 the horse, actuated by homesickness. 
 
 He knew much about the sagacity of horses in times 
 of peril: of their keen vision, their cautious tread, their 
 self-control or was it merely a sense of location sur-
 
 6 ROSY 
 
 passing that of human beings? Almost involuntarily 
 he relaxed his grip on the rein. 
 
 The result was immediately reassuring. He was mov- 
 ing forward again, slowly, smoothly. Moreover, he had 
 the conviction that the animal had consciously assumed 
 responsibility that it had realized precisely what he 
 had realized, and that it was rising to the occasion to 
 perform its duty perfectly. 
 
 The mist which had heralded the approach of rain 
 had thickened and had now given way to a steady 
 downpour. But the time was summer and he did not 
 mind being wet to the skin. His clothes would be 
 ruined; but after to-morrow, what need should he have 
 of the clothing of a free man ? He began to relax some- 
 what, to breathe more easily. He realized that he had 
 done well to trust the horse, rather than to seek to shape 
 his own destiny at a moment when he was actually help- 
 less. 
 
 The steady, sure beat of the horse's hoofs increased 
 his assurance as the moments passed. The sense of 
 floating through space was not diminished, but his 
 anxiety passed. If he could see nothing, it was plain 
 that his horse saw for him. His sense of direction, of 
 location, asserted itself more precisely, and presently 
 he found himself visualizing the way along which he 
 passed. Here, where he had been borne around a 
 slight curve, his surroundings came before him in many 
 of their outlines: jagged, overhanging rocks forming an 
 almost complete roof over the mountain road. It was 
 here, too, that the traveller by day was constrained to 
 catch his breath because of the chasm at the right, with 
 the tops of great trees rising like the miniature trees in 
 a German picture of Christmas, down there some thou- 
 sands of feet below. It was here, too, that the tourist 
 might be depended upon to pause and sigh with delight
 
 ROSY 7 
 
 over the vista, through ranks of trees and vast aerial 
 spaces, of the river and the valley in the dim distance. 
 
 Presently he found it necessary to lean well forward 
 to maintain his equilibrium, to conform to the altered 
 position of the horse. The ascent had become much 
 more steep, and again he knew exactly where he was. 
 It was here that the road lifted to the sharpest angle of 
 its entire course; and he reminded himself that it was 
 now only a little distance farther to the bench, where 
 the perils of the way would beset him no longer, and 
 where he might expect to discern lighted windows. 
 
 For a moment his heart bounded with joy at the 
 thought of a lighted window and a welcome, perhaps, 
 from some mountain family who had known him from 
 boyhood, and who knew too much about his actual 
 character to pay very much attention to evil chance 
 and report. 
 
 Then in the pitchy darkness his lips tightened as he 
 pondered whether, indeed, he might expect a welcome 
 from any who knew him. He came to the conclusion 
 that it might be better, after all, if he came to a house 
 where he had never been known. From such a house 
 he would not be turned away, since it was the way of 
 the mountain folk to be hospitable to strangers, who 
 often met some slight mishap on the road, or who, un- 
 acquainted with the way, required a friendly hand or 
 word to set them right. 
 
 He had decided definitely what he should do upon 
 reaching the bench. The horse must be left in charge 
 at a stable somewhere, to be sent back to his father the 
 next day. And he must borrow a lantern and return 
 down the mountain road on foot. As for his own 
 movements, he had no choice. He must go back down 
 the mountain. He must take the midnight train for 
 Little Rock. He had given his word.
 
 8 ROSY 
 
 His next emotion was of quickened respect, of affec- 
 tion, for the horse he bestrode. What a faithful creature 
 it was, to be sure ! It had behaved with wonderful cir- 
 cumspection from the moment he had given it the right 
 to move freely. He felt the muscles of the sturdy 
 shoulders rise and fall against his knees. He experi- 
 enced a kind of ecstasy from a realization of the ani- 
 mal's strength, which was now in effect his own strength. 
 He leaned forward and stroked the silent, purposeful 
 creature's neck; he spoke as to a friend who could un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Then he strained his eyes for lights in the distance, 
 but as yet not a light was to be seen. 
 
 There was a final scrambling ascent, the clatter of 
 loose rocks in the road, and then he knew that the 
 bench had been reached. It was as if he were putting 
 forth less energy now, because the horse's task had be- 
 come easier. There was a turn almost at right angles 
 and then he was moving along a level road. 
 
 Though the pall of blackness had thinned almost im- 
 perceptibly, it was still impossible for the man to see 
 his own hand before him. He tried and could not do 
 so. He was not only riding through the rain, he was 
 riding through the sources of the rain the dense cloud 
 which crowned the mountain. Yet he knew that his 
 trial was all but at an end. He knew that he was now 
 traversing a wide road a well-kept road. Presently, 
 he knew, there would be houses on either side of him; 
 some set into the mountain, and others clinging like 
 nests in the meagre pockets which overhung the valley. 
 
 There would be a light in a window presently, and an 
 open door, and perhaps a welcome. A welcome . . . 
 well, he was growing less confident of that. Possibly 
 not a welcome. But the mountain folk would recog- 
 nize his need, and when he explained his predicament
 
 ROSY 9 
 
 they would not they could not fail to help him, so 
 far as help lay in their power. After all, it was only a 
 lantern that he required, and a shelter for his horse for 
 the night, and a promise that the animal should be de- 
 livered to Pisgah in the morning. 
 
 It was just then that a new quality entered into his 
 night's adventure, a kind of sinister quality. He 
 ought to be able to see the cottage lights by now, but 
 he could not do so. He seemed, quite suddenly, to be 
 helplessly adrift in fathomless space, alone, shut out, 
 annihilated. He had a vision of the valleys below him, 
 dim pictures in miniature, but it was as if the mountain 
 had vanished into nothing, leaving him at a great height 
 in a stormy sky. Those cottage lights . . . surely on 
 the darkest night they should be visible a hundred 
 yards or so. But they were not. He had a momentary 
 shuddering sense of losing his bearings wholly. 
 
 He tried to estimate the distance he had covered on 
 the bench road, so that he might guess where he was. 
 Had he passed old Jacob Feld's place and Springer's? 
 Surely he had done so. Yet their windows were only a 
 few yards from the road, and he had seen nothing, 
 heard nothing. He tried to conquer a feeling of con- 
 fusion, ( of incredulity. After all, even on clear nights 
 the bench road was always shrouded in deep shadow, 
 with the mountain rising sharply on one hand to its 
 summit, and thick foliage hanging arch-like overhead. 
 And just now there was added that impenetrable mist 
 ... he shivered a little. He was drenched through 
 and the night air was becoming cooler. 
 
 If he had really passed the Feld and the Springer 
 places he must be close to the cote-like hut of the 
 Woodridges; and he forgot all minor forms of perplex- 
 ity when he thought of this. Under even the most 
 pressing circumstances should he be willing to enter
 
 io ROSY 
 
 Sam Woodridge's house and confront Rosy? No 
 no, he would not do that; though for an instant he 
 smiled grimly, and was tempted. What would they 
 have to say to him, the Woodridges above all others? 
 But no, they shouldn't be put to the test. And in any 
 case he must have passed their obscure little hut by 
 now. 
 
 Dear Rosy ! He recalled her, noisy, all alive, candid, 
 courageous, a wonderful girl. . . . 
 
 He lapsed into the borders of dreamland; and when 
 he saw a light at last it came to him with the effect of a 
 shock. 
 
 He pulled himself together sharply. There it was, 
 the thing he had been looking for; a light, a harbor. 
 
 It seemed a considerable distance away, that light. 
 Perhaps a hundred yards. It streamed through the 
 window, touching cloud and rain and sending its blurred 
 avenue of pale illumination toward him. No part of 
 the house was visible; just that rectangle of dim il- 
 lumination. 
 
 He checked a first impulse to call out. It would be 
 more becoming, surely, for him to make his appear- 
 ance as modestly as possible. He would not summon 
 any man as if he had the right of other men to do so. 
 He must sue humbly if he wished to be befriended. 
 He dismounted and drew the bridle-rein over the horse's 
 head. 
 
 A hand in the darkness seemed suddenly to pluck his 
 hat from his head. In amazement he reached out and 
 touched a dripping limb which was swaying violently 
 above him. He understood; he had come into contact 
 with a tree. He murmured " Good ! " and tied the bridle- 
 rein to the convenient limb. He groped for his hat, all 
 about his feet, but it seemed to have been spirited 
 quite away. He took a step forward and drew up,
 
 ROSY ii 
 
 aghast. Then slowly he exhaled with an inarticulate, 
 incredulous sound. 
 
 He had experienced a phenomenon wholly new to 
 him an optical illusion. He had been sure that the 
 light in that window had been a considerable distance 
 from him. And now, as if by some magical process, it 
 was there within reach of his hand. He could have 
 tapped on the window-pane. 
 
 He had the sensations of a patient who is emerging 
 from the influence of an anaesthetic. He had been adrift 
 in a limbo of things; and now he was in actual contact 
 with a window-sill, and he was looking into the window 
 and beholding the edge of a domestic drama of some 
 sort. 
 
 A man and a woman were sitting before a fireplace 
 in which the fires of winter had long ago ceased to burn. 
 Their sitting here seemed to be merely habitual as if, 
 perhaps, the chairs had not been moved since the fires 
 had been ablaze on the hearth or as if there was no 
 room for them elsewhere. 
 
 The woman was all but invisible; the hem of her 
 skirt was discernible, and an arm, which reclined along 
 the top of a chair. But even that arm or part of an 
 arm had a story to tell. It expressed listlessness, if 
 not dejection. It perfectly harmonized with the hearth 
 from which the vital element was absent and which 
 held now only cold ashes to tell of something departed. 
 
 The outlines of the man who sat near her were al- 
 most completely revealed to the witness outside the 
 window. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his 
 knees, his hands clasped before him an image in every 
 detail of dissatisfaction bordering upon dejection. He 
 was so motionless that he might have been supposed 
 to be asleep, yet his attitude suggested anything but 
 slumber. For though sleep may distort bodies and make
 
 12 ROSY 
 
 them seem grotesque or helpless, it does not give them 
 the aspect of anguish. 
 
 So the drama within displayed itself until the man 
 outside stumbled and touched the window, and then 
 the classic severity of the scene changed with electri- 
 fying swiftness changed to homely comedy. The man 
 sprang to his feet in such agitation that his chair was 
 overturned. He looked appealingly to the woman who 
 was his companion. He was terrified. And obviously 
 in response to a signal from her he sped toward a cor- 
 ner of the room and scrambled up a ladder which stood 
 against the wall. 
 
 He was gone! He might have been a mouse in a 
 barn scuttling away before the approach of a cat. 
 
 The man outside recovered from his surprise suffi- 
 ciently to smile faintly. He had recognized the man 
 within, and he mused coldly: "Why did the Almighty 
 ever make a coward? I never saw Nat Minturn yet 
 but what he seemed about to run or hide. For my 
 part " He broke off abruptly. "What's Minturn 
 doing here?" was his next question. "Whose house is 
 it?" 
 
 Instinct seemed to reply to his question; or perhaps 
 some object in the room had touched a chord in his 
 memory. Could it possibly be . . . ? 
 
 He groped his way along the wall until his hand came 
 upon a door-casing and a door and a latch. He forgot 
 that there were reasons why he should hesitate to an- 
 nounce his presence before any man's door. He forgot 
 the treacherous road over which he had come and the 
 eerie mountain fastnesses all about him. He lifted his 
 hand and knocked on the door.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THERE was just that measure of delay which any 
 visitor might have expected and then the door opened. 
 The woman who had been partly visible through the 
 window now stood with her hand on the latch, her face 
 peering with precisely the right tone of inquiry into the 
 darkness. The woman or should it be said the child ? 
 It was a vigorous, robust figure that stood in the door- 
 way, but the candid, wide-open eyes and the soft com- 
 plexion were of the sort which one associates with 
 childhood rather than womanhood. 
 
 "Well . . . Rosy?" said the man who stood with- 
 out. He seemed to be recalling her, almost to be identi- 
 fying her. "You've not forgotten me, Rosy ? " he added. 
 There was a note of mockery in his voice, a suggestion 
 of simulated dry indifference. Yet the spirit of the 
 mountain, if it were hovering near, must have perceived, 
 with its unhurried inspection of the human heart, that 
 there was a deeply hidden note of appeal, too, when 
 the stiffly erect, defiant figure outside the door said: 
 "You've not forgotten me, Rosy?" 
 
 She stepped back a little, opening the door wider. 
 "Come in," she said. She spoke almost imperatively, 
 her tone implying that it was not seemly for any one 
 to stand in the rain, just outside a door. And when he 
 entered, glancing with silent apology at his dripping 
 garments, she closed the door wonderingly and then 
 stood apart from him, her hands clasped before her. 
 She regarded him a moment, searching the soul as well 
 as the body perhaps particularly the soul. Her eyes 
 darkened with a shadow of doubt, and then she said 
 or whispered tensely: "Zeb? Zeb Nanny?" 
 
 13
 
 14 ROSY 
 
 He did not seem to consider it needful to reply to her 
 question. He stood erect, his face held high as if he 
 had never been more presentable looking at her with 
 an odd, steadfast smile of kindly mockery. Presently 
 he 'added: "You're not afraid of me?" 
 
 "No, I'm not afraid," she said. She seemed to be 
 trying to suppress her emotions, whatever they were. 
 She turned toward a small table at one side of the 
 room and placed upon it a garment in which a threaded 
 needle had been thrust, as if she had been engaged in 
 mending the garment when the interruption occurred; 
 and the intruder, who knew that she had been quite 
 idle before his arrival, concluded that the slightly os- 
 tentatious placing of the garment and the needle and 
 thread on the table was only a bit of feminine camouflage, 
 and he continued to smile with quiet mockery, while his 
 eyes rested an instant on the garment, and then sought 
 the girl's. 
 
 Something in her gaze an expression of aloofness, of 
 remoteness, of wondering appraisal sobered him. He 
 said, as if in answer to the expression in her eyes: "I'm 
 going back to Little Rock to-morrow." And after a 
 brief interval he added, regarding her relentlessly: "To 
 finish out my term in prison." 
 
 His blunt speech embarrassed her; she held her eyes 
 on his with difficulty. "I've heard of your coming," 
 she said falteringly, "and of the strange way. ... I 
 didn't know they ever let the con the prisoners go 
 away by themselves, and trust them to come back." 
 
 He considered this, moving his head aside a little. 
 Slowly there came an expression of contempt in the 
 lines on his face, in the gleam in his eyes. "It's some 
 new nonsense," he explained. "I believe they call it 
 the honor system as if there had been any honor in 
 the way they treated me from the beginning." He
 
 ROSY 15 
 
 restrained an impulse to complain and condemn. He 
 went on more quietly: "It's being done in other States. 
 I believe it's a new thing here in Arkansas." 
 
 He had scarcely moved since he came into the room. 
 There was a rare composure both mental and phys- 
 ical about him which enabled him to stand upright, 
 without any need of seeking out objects to touch, or of 
 speaking for the mere relief of speaking. He seemed 
 now to be waiting, without any uneasiness at all, to 
 note what Rosy would do or say next. 
 
 She had difficulty in framing her next sentence. Her 
 eyes were already asking a question with kindly warmth 
 and pity while she sought out the words which eluded 
 her, and presently she said impulsively: "And you did 
 get home in time, didn't you?" 
 
 A wave of emotion swept over his face and was gone. 
 "In time . . . yes, I got home before mother died." 
 He uttered the words dryly, as if his real answer had 
 been kept in reserve. He had indeed come home in 
 time to see his mother die, but he had not been per- 
 mitted to come in time to enable her to live. 
 
 He seemed ready to put the subject aside. He glanced 
 about the room with a sort of sad, affectionate regard, 
 and presently his eyes travelled to the ladder, and a 
 gleam of evil humor burned in them as he followed the 
 course of the ladder, up to the square opening in the 
 attic floor. He was listening intently, but the whole 
 house was so silent that the slow drip of water from his 
 garments to the floor could be heard. 
 
 It was plain that she would not permit him to explore 
 the attic, even in fancy. She assumed a brisk air. 
 "You're all wet," she said. "Won't you take your coat 
 off? I could start a little fire. You could dry it. Or 
 you might put on father's coat. ..." 
 
 She turned toward a coat that hung on the wall, and
 
 16 ROSY 
 
 in that moment her attitude, her whole being, became 
 almost piteously childish. She lifted her finger-tips to 
 her cheeks and gazed at that coat on the wall. She 
 seemed to diminish in stature; sorrow enveloped her like 
 a sombre veil. 
 
 " Where is your father?" he asked, a note of in- 
 credulity in his voice, as if her attitude had answered 
 his question before it had been expressed. 
 
 "He is dead," she replied. 
 
 He met that revelation with the silence of one who is 
 Stricken dumb. He glanced at her furtively, but she 
 was still gazing at her father's coat. But for once he 
 could not bear to remain silent long. "I hadn't heard," 
 he said presently. "You know we never hear anything 
 . . . inside the walls. At least, I never do. I'm sorry, 
 Rosy you know I am ! And your mother?" 
 
 "She is dead, too." 
 
 He exclaimed incredulously: "No!" And then he 
 gazed at her in silence. An expression of dread was in 
 his eyes, as if he were applying this chronicle of tragedy 
 to himself and realizing for the first time that the 
 world may change completely for the man who is 
 away, during the years of his absence. The Wood- 
 ridges both dead and gone ! and he had seen them go- 
 ing monotonously about their daily tasks less than two 
 years ago. 
 
 Some habitual quality of reserve or stoicism reas- 
 serted itself in him and he made no comment upon the 
 fact that her mother and father were dead. With 
 sudden decision he went to the door and opened it and 
 looked out. His interests were no longer within, seem- 
 ingly. His attitude expressed the question: Would the 
 rain pass presently, and the skies clear, or were con- 
 ditions to remain unchanged all night? 
 
 He perceived with relief that the prospect was im-
 
 ROSY 17 
 
 proved. The clouds had lifted and were even broken 
 here and there. It was no longer raining. The dark- 
 ness was less intense. He could see a blurred object 
 out where he had tethered his horse. Even the road 
 was emerging faintly from the obscurity; he could see 
 bits of it here and there as it passed the hut. He could 
 trace the line of tree-tops against the sky. Somewhere 
 far away the frogs had set up their chorus, like a chant 
 by downhearted people whose sad condition has been 
 a little ameliorated. 
 
 He knew that he need not return to Pisgah afoot. A 
 little later he should be able to mount his horse and 
 ride down the mountain. And there was no immediate 
 need of haste. 
 
 He crossed the door-sill and she heard him murmur 
 something about his hat; but when he re-entered the door 
 a few minutes later he was still hatless. "It must have 
 blown away," he explained, "but it doesn't matter." 
 
 He closed the door and turned to the girl, who stood 
 regarding him inquiringly. 
 
 "Maybe I had better try to dry out a little," he said. 
 He wriggled out of his clinging coat and dropped it over 
 a chair-back. "Let me," he interposed, when she would 
 have knelt down to start a blaze in the fireplace. The 
 month was July and a summer heat pervaded the hut, 
 but there was wood on the hearth. The mornings were 
 always cool on the mountain, and a little fire, to take 
 the chill from the air on arising, was thought to be a 
 safeguard against malaria. 
 
 He set about making a fire, but she helped him. She 
 was on her knees beside him, handing him kindling, and 
 then a match. And always she was regarding him a 
 little furtively, and with an expression in her eyes which 
 never could have been mistaken for disapproval or 
 antipathy.
 
 i8 ROSY^ 
 
 Once he surprised that expression in her eyes, and 
 for a moment he appeared to lose interest in the task 
 he had begun. He sat back on his heels and allowed 
 his hands to rest idly against his thighs. It was as 
 if he had not really seen her before; and his eyes bright- 
 ened with pleasure as they travelled on little journeys 
 of exploration from her burnished auburn hair to her 
 warm hazel eyes with a hint of wine color in them, and 
 her cheeks like the skin of certain peaches he had 
 gathered from a tree at home, save that they were 
 deliciously freckled, and the harbored white of her 
 throat. She was a wonderful creature, he thought; and 
 just now she was childlike and demure, perhaps because 
 he had become all but a stranger to her. They had not 
 seen each other for nearly two years. 
 
 He tried to remember how old she had been when 
 he saw her last. Wasn't it only fifteen? Yet surely 
 she must have been more than that ! She would have 
 been taken for twenty, or even more than that now. 
 She was too fully developed for a young girl. There 
 was a kind of voluptuousness about her; her arms and 
 throat were full and round, and she had an opulent 
 fulness of bosom. But he knew the true story of her 
 years was best found in her face; and her face by turns 
 revealed the high spirits of the untried who have never 
 learned to be afraid, and the piquant mischief of young 
 girls, which suggests kinship to kittens and other gen- 
 tle yet feline animals. 
 
 He thought particularly of a kitten when she turned 
 to him suddenly, as if he were behaving rather provok- 
 ingly in not going ahead with the task of building the 
 fire, and put forth a dimpled hand, with a paw-like 
 gesture, and raked the kindling toward her. 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" she demanded with a 
 smile. "I don't believe you know how to build a fire ! "
 
 ROSY 19 
 
 He thought, "Was there ever another smile like that?" 
 and he seemed not to know that she had put forth her 
 hand for the matches she had given him. 
 
 "You do it this way," she said; and she lighted the 
 kindling and then watched almost breathlessly for the 
 flame to mount and catch the larger pieces of wood. 
 She seemed a little like a pagan for the moment a 
 pagan lighting a sacrificial fire. 
 
 The purr of the burning kindling rose to a riot of 
 snapping sounds; the flames began to leap and spread. 
 A stronger light filled the room. Shadows wavered in 
 the corners and on the walls. 
 
 The man and the girl drew back, still without with- 
 drawing their minds from the fire for a little while, 
 seemingly; and then the man arose and placed a chair 
 and hung his coat before the blaze. This done, he 
 stood looking down upon her intently. 
 
 Long-gone days with their rosy hues came back to 
 him, driving from his mind the present, with its lowering 
 clouds and darkness. They had been sweethearts 
 once upon a time he and the girl who remained kneel- 
 ing on the hearth. 
 
 It was she who had made the choice. She had chosen 
 him, and enticed him forth on her mountain expeditions 
 in search of chincapins and wild grapes and the secrets 
 of hidden coves and dark caves. They had gone to- 
 gether, often silent for hours, spying upon the lives of 
 wild creatures. She had given him to understand that 
 she expected him to lead the way; and then she had 
 followed, silently eager, hoping for wilder and yet wilder 
 scenes. He had been almost a man while she was still 
 a little girl, but a man different from other men, with 
 a child's eager love of natural things, and a curious in- 
 difference to the crude forms of social life which ap- 
 pealed to others of his own sex and age.
 
 20 ROSY 
 
 They had been sweethearts together but with never 
 a word of love or even friendship or loyalty. 
 
 The time came when she was thought to be too old 
 for this wild manner of life, and then they had seen less 
 and less of each other. And finally came the trouble 
 which resulted in his going to prison and losing her for- 
 ever. 
 
 He had not thought of going near her when he came 
 back to Pisgah to be with his mother when she died. 
 She would be a grown young lady now, he reflected, 
 and she would be through with him. All women would 
 be through with him. He had made up his mind to 
 renounce all the joys which other men might seek. 
 He had been ruined and what sort of woman would 
 marry a man who was branded ? 
 
 . . . Now he stood looking down at her intently. It 
 did not occur to him that anything could be undone, 
 anything changed. Yet he was aware of a strange 
 warmth stirring in his heart, an unwonted interest in 
 life awakening in his brain. 
 
 He moved the chair a little noisily so that she would 
 look up. "It's going all right," he said. "Come and 
 sit down, won't you ? And if you don't mind, you might 
 tell me about about all that's happened." 
 
 She was shading her face with her hand as she turned 
 and looked up at him. "About what?" she asked. 
 
 He stumbled in his speech a little. "You know," he 
 said; "your father and mother . . . they were both 
 here the last time I came up the mountain." 
 
 She seemed quite as comfortable sitting back on 
 her heels as she would have been on a chair. She 
 seemed to settle a little, and she continued to shade her 
 face with her hand as she told the story of her mother 
 and father. 
 
 "It was in January," she began. "She had been ail-
 
 ROSY 21 
 
 ing; with a cold, or something. She had been coughing 
 all winter. And one day he went out to bring in wood. 
 He did not come back all day. When it came night 
 she went along the bench, telling people that he had 
 not come home. She asked them to look for him. But 
 they couldn't believe at first that anything was wrong. 
 You know how people are. And she looked for him 
 alone. She went all the way around the bench road, 
 and when she came home she was worn out. She was 
 crying. I can hear her crying now, and coughing. And 
 then she went out again and was gone a long time. She 
 said nothing when she came back, and later she went 
 out again. But she could not find him. I helped her, 
 but it didn't seem any use. We couldn't think where 
 he was. It was very cold a stormy night. I made her 
 lie down then, and covered her up, and she lay moaning. 
 It was midnight when she came in the last time, and she 
 became very ill. Toward morning her mind was wan- 
 dering. You know? She didn't even know me. She 
 lay for two days without knowing any one. When I 
 told her that everybody was out looking they had 
 come to believe something had happened to him by this 
 time I couldn't make her understand. She died two 
 days later. But at the end . . . she lay talking to him 
 softly, scolding him as if she were petting him at the 
 same time. It was as if she had found him. Really, it 
 seemed so. And so she died. And the next day they 
 found him. He had fallen over a ledge. It had rained 
 and then frozen. It was slippery. And he was dead." 
 
 The hand which had been shading her face closed in 
 against her eyes and there was silence. Presently she 
 went on speaking without taking her hand from her 
 eyes. "The only comfort I could find was that neither 
 of them knew." 
 
 She turned toward him, one hand resting on the rough
 
 22 ROSY 
 
 stone fireplace in support of her body. "You know 
 those things the preachers talk about on Sunday?" she 
 asked. "About a life hereafter?" 
 
 He turned his eyes away from her. "I know about 
 them," he said. 
 
 "Of course nobody knows," she continued. "But I 
 can't help thinking of them sometimes, of mother and 
 father. And I've thought how wonderful it would be 
 if they had met in another world, I mean; both well 
 and strong and standing straight? You can imagine 
 each saying to the other: 'What you are here? I 
 thought I should have to wait a while ! ' I wonder . . . 
 if the people who started that story knew any more 
 than you or I." 
 
 The words and tone affected him greatly; and though 
 he did not move, his mind and heart seemed to rush 
 toward her, to envelop her, to claim her. But his habit- 
 ual reserve asserted itself. He could not speak for a 
 time, and at length he only said: "You're a strange 
 girl, Rosy." He was leaning forward, his hands on his 
 knees, and his eyes were at once soft and keen. For 
 the moment he had forgotten that she was concealing 
 Nat Minturn who, surely, had become her lover? 
 in the attic. He had forgotten to wonder why she had 
 done so. He was thinking only that Rosy's parents 
 must have been truly in love with each other that 
 they must have walked close together to have be- 
 gotten such a daughter, glorious in mind and body. 
 
 Perhaps she realized that he was not far from a 
 sentimental mood. She sprang to her feet alertly, with 
 surprising lightness. She busied herself with his coat, 
 turning it and readjusting it. 
 
 As if prompted by something of trepidation in her 
 manner, he said slowly: "I didn't think to tell you how 
 I happened to be here, Rosy. I was riding up the
 
 ROSY 23 
 
 mountain just for old times' sake. And it got so dark 
 I didn't know where I was. I gave the horse his head 
 and he brought me here by chance, you might say." 
 He would not say that he shouldn't voluntarily have 
 come to see her; that would have sounded ungracious, 
 gratuitous. But he was not willing to have her believe 
 that he had done so. 
 
 Her only reply to what he had said was to move his 
 coat a little farther from the fire; and after an interval 
 of silence he said: "And so you went on living here all 
 by yourself?" 
 
 She nodded. "I couldn't think of going away. The 
 Springers offered to take me to live with them. They're 
 getting old, you know. Mrs. Springer really ought to 
 have some one to help her about the house. They were 
 as kind as could be. But I don't know you know 
 they're Germans. . . ." She was going to add that 
 she had not felt that she could feel at home among Ger- 
 mans; and then she remembered Jacob Feld and his 
 family, with whom she had always felt very much at 
 home, indeed, and she knew that her disinclination to 
 go to live with the Springers was not really because 
 they were Germans, but because she did not wish to 
 leave the house where her mother and father had lived. 
 "I haven't minded much being alone," she added. 
 
 For the first time he paid close heed to the various 
 aspects of the room. It was on the whole a gentler 
 interior than one would have expected to find on the 
 mountain. To be sure, there was the shotgun on its 
 wooden pegs on the wall to give the place a somewhat 
 wild appearance. But there was a picture or two, and 
 certain homely decorations : wall-pockets made in better 
 taste than common, and odd decorations made of pine- 
 cones gathered on the near-by slopes. The bed, too, 
 was quite immaculate.
 
 24 ROSY 
 
 "But how do you get along all by yourself, Rosy?" 
 he ventured at length to ask. 
 
 "It's been easy enough," she declared. "There are 
 the chickens, you know we've always had quite a lot 
 of them. And there are a good many grapes and ap- 
 ples on the slope and peaches. They've done mighty 
 well this season. And the garden; father had made the 
 garden larger just last year." 
 
 "And you look after everything yourself?" 
 
 "Of course! It isn't so much." As if she had not 
 yet fully explained how she got along, she added: "The 
 hotel people on the summit buy eggs and chickens dur- 
 ing the summer, when there are a lot of guests up there; 
 and the guests come down often and buy fruit. They 
 mostly want to pay more than you'll let them. You 
 know it's their time to spend money and be free-handed 
 vacation time." 
 
 "Yes, in the summer. But what'll you do in the 
 winter?" 
 
 "It will be different," she admitted. "But I'll need 
 very little, and I can always save in the summer. But 
 there'll be the chickens and eggs, even in the winter. 
 I'll send them to Pisgah. There's always a chance 
 every week or so; somebody going down with a wagon. 
 You know the Felds spend the winter here, just as I 
 do. I can always count on Mr. Feld to help." 
 
 She turned her attention to his coat again, as if at 
 last she had thought of the man hidden in the attic; as 
 if she were becoming impatient for her visitor to be 
 gone. 
 
 He did not wish to embarrass her. He went to the 
 door again and looked out. The clouds were still too 
 dense to permit more than the faintest light to pene- 
 trate them. It would not be safe to begin that journey 
 down the mountain now. The horse whinnied to him,
 
 ROSY 25 
 
 but he closed the door and returned to the fire, standing 
 with his back to it. His clothes began to steam a 
 little. 
 
 "I'll go pretty soon," he said, as if she had sug- 
 gested that he ought not to remain. 
 
 She surprised him by saying firmly: "Not yet. Your 
 coat isn't dry." 
 
 He turned toward her, moved anew by her kindness, 
 her solicitude. He realized that when he left the hut 
 presently he should carry away with him a new plea- 
 sure that life would have a new value for him. It 
 seemed to him that he had never really seen Rosy be- 
 fore; and now he knew that he should always be able 
 to see her, no matter where he went. He felt long- 
 repressed emotions stir within him. For the moment 
 he lost the firm hold upon himself he had maintained; 
 and during that moment he took a step toward her 
 and put his hand on her arm. He looked significantly 
 up to where the ladder ended into the opening to the 
 attic. 
 
 "Rosy!" he whispered, his voice charged with emo- 
 tion. "What made Nat hide when he heard me com- 
 ing?" 
 
 And he was scarcely surprised when she started 
 away from him, her cheeks suddenly pale and her 
 eyes filled with dismay.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HE would have recalled that question instantly if he 
 could have done so. He had blundered. He should 
 not have let her know that her secret had been re- 
 vealed to him. He thought that perhaps the right kind 
 of man would not even have glanced toward the ladder. 
 
 But it was too late to undo the harm he had done. 
 He realized this when she drew back from him in that 
 startled manner and searched his eyes. And then it 
 came to him slowly and with a kind of sullen painful- 
 ness that it was not merely an innocent secret that 
 Rosy had sought to keep, but that it was something 
 shameful which she had meant to hide. 
 
 He did not know that he was staring at her accusingly. 
 The old bonds which had never been confessed seemed 
 to have been re-established. He felt a sense of injury, 
 a fleeting right to control. 
 
 He said in a low voice with a certain hardness in it: 
 "I saw him through the window. I was not spying. 
 It was an accident." 
 
 "Oh !" she murmured. She seemed a little bewildered 
 to be trying to regain her composure. And her heart 
 was paining her because of that expression of mistrust 
 in his eyes of accusation. She moved farther away 
 from him, as if she were trying to decide what to do. 
 Then, with sudden decision, she went to the foot of the 
 ladder and looked up toward the attic. She called out a 
 little dubiously: "You'd better come down, Nat. He 
 knows you're here." 
 
 There was an interval of silence and then the creak- 
 ing of timbers overhead. The ladder vibrated, and a 
 
 26
 
 ROSY 27 
 
 man's feet and body and face appeared. A young 
 man it was; of a somewhat delicate build, and of fas- 
 tidious dress. Just now his eyes were blinking, and he 
 paused on the ladder perhaps because he could not 
 see very well just at first, or possibly because of a cer- 
 tain hesitancy he felt in greeting the man who stood 
 looking up at him. After a brief pause he asked, with 
 an effort to speak lightly yet a little sharply: "What 
 are you doing here, Nanny ? " 
 
 Nanny had not ceased to regard him steadily, sternly; 
 and now he took a step forward, his hand extended. It 
 occurred to him that Minturn would not be able to 
 shake his hand if he had come to the hut with an evil 
 purpose in his mind. 
 
 But Minturn did shake his hand; limply, as was his 
 way, and with a faint smile in which there was some- 
 thing of condescension. "You took us a little by sur- 
 prise," he said amiably, glancing at Rosy as if for con- 
 firmation. "I was paying Rosy a secret visit and you 
 caught me that's all." He turned to Rosy again. 
 "We didn't want any one to know I was here did 
 we, Rosy?" he added. 
 
 And Nanny believed that he understood quite clearly. 
 Minturn and Rosy were in love what more natural? 
 And they had to make a secret of it. Nat was not a 
 bad fellow, after all; but his people . . . really, there 
 was nothing you could say in favor of his people, ex- 
 cept that they were rich richer by far than any of 
 their neighbors, far or near. And their wealth had made 
 them arrogant and ambitious in a way. They would 
 never have consented to a marriage between Nat and 
 Rosy between Nat and any poor girl. According to 
 any sensible person's way of thinking, Rosy was a 
 treasure above riches, above price; but the Minturns 
 weren't sensible persons. They weren't the kind to
 
 28 ROSY 
 
 recognize Rosy's worth. They would think of her 
 only as a mountain girl who had to work hard and who 
 had very little. Her beauty and goodness would not 
 count with them. 
 
 It was so that Nanny interpreted the situation, and 
 he was inclined to think better of Nat, who had ignored 
 his parents' standards and who had dared to go courting 
 a girl because he admired her and not because she was 
 the girl his family would have chosen for him. 
 
 He nodded slowly. "I guess I understand," he said. 
 "And I'll not say anything about my finding you here. 
 I gather that's what you're getting at, Nat?" 
 
 "On Rosy's account as much as my own," amended 
 Minturn. 
 
 "I'll say nothing," said Nanny shortly. After all, 
 he didn't quite like the situation. 
 
 But a flush of gratitude and admiration warmed 
 Minturn's cheeks. "You're a good fellow, Zeb," he 
 said impulsively. "I I've always said so. Even 
 when you got into trouble. I did, honestly. I believe 
 even yet that there was some mystery about it that 
 if you wanted to explain your side ..." 
 
 But here he had come upon Nanny's chief limita- 
 tion a fierce dislike of any man's expressed praise 
 or approbation or sympathy. He turned away ungra- 
 ciously. He went to the door again and looked at the 
 sky. He was out of place, here in Rosy's hut. They 
 would want to be alone, Rosy and Nat. Rosy would 
 want a chance to assure Nat that she would wait for 
 him, even if they had to wait until his father died. Or 
 if they had both talked it all over to the last word as 
 they seemed to have done when he stumbled against 
 the window then they would want to bear their un- 
 happiness alone, in silence. 
 
 But as he stood, looking out, the sky seemed to be
 
 ROSY 29 
 
 closing In upon him like a bat's wings. The darkness 
 was deepening again. No, he could not go just yet. 
 
 He did not know that the other two occupants of 
 the room were regarding him intently one of them, at 
 least, with deepening approval. If Minturn's expression 
 was inscrutable, Rosy was undoubtedly seeing him 
 anew, now that there was another man present with 
 whom to contrast him. The old unfathomed fascina- 
 tion he had always had for her came back to her now 
 with renewed force. 
 
 The girl in Rosy was still very much alive; she could 
 contemplate the playthings of life with ecstasy and at 
 times with perfect contentment. Perhaps she would 
 always be able to do so. But something deeper was 
 awakening in her nature, too, so that she could con- 
 template, shyly and with a certain ache of desire, a 
 man who was done with the playtime of life and who 
 knew how to be serious and silent a rock one might 
 find shelter behind in time of storm. 
 
 Nanny belonged to this type of men. Indeed, she 
 could not remember that he had ever seemed gay and 
 irresponsible, a stripling. He was a full-bodied man, 
 hard and powerful; and if he often moved with the 
 lithe freedom of an Indian, there was in his eyes the 
 reflective quietude which had come to him with his 
 thirty-two years of stressful labor and hardship. 
 
 Rosy pictured other aspects of him than those which 
 were presented to her just now. She could hear his 
 deep, serious voice; she recalled his way of seeming to 
 look down upon things rather than up at them. She 
 sighed unconsciously. It had been a wonderful half- 
 hour they had had together, before Nat had been 
 summoned to join them. She stole a glance at Min- 
 turn and took in his rather delicate build, his softness. 
 There was a kind of preciseness about him, something
 
 30 ROSY 
 
 finished and definite, as if he had already made up his 
 mind just what he should do under any circumstances 
 which might arise as if he had fixed rules to go by. 
 She thought a man might grow up like Minturn if he 
 spent his energies looking into books, and at deeds to 
 property, perhaps; while Nanny was more like a man 
 who sought his stories in the stars and read his titles 
 in the clouds and skies. She tried to think how long 
 it would be before his prison term ended. For the 
 moment she was not thinking of Minturn at all. 
 
 Nanny closed the door and turned back into the 
 room. He stood looking down on Minturn. And pres- 
 ently he said going back to Min turn's last words: 
 "There's no mystery about it about their making a 
 convict out of me. I was sent down to Little Rock for 
 defending my rights." 
 
 "Yes," returned Minturn uncomfortably; "of course; 
 but . . . you know they said you had stolen a horse." 
 He sought Rosy's eyes as if for support as if he had 
 not the courage to face Nanny at that moment. 
 
 Nanny took his position before the fire again, facing 
 them; and both Rosy and Minturn drew a little apart 
 from him and sat down as if they were an audience, pre- 
 pared to listen to his story. They were not embarrassed 
 by the prospect of listening to his self-revelation. Rosy 
 was saved from this by the quickened sympathy she 
 felt for him; and as for Minturn, his attitude was that 
 of a more or less unconscious superiority. The Nannys 
 father and son had always been rather obscure 
 persons. Although they owned their farm, it was a 
 small one, lying among the foot-hills where land was 
 held cheaply, and they had always been unpretentious, 
 even humble, men, who loved their work and were con- 
 tent not to mingle prominently in the affairs of the com- 
 munity.
 
 ROSY 31 
 
 "I didn't steal the horse," said Nanny. "I took it. 
 It was the only way I had of getting even with old 
 Lott. It was the only thing he really cared for. I 
 took it, not because I wanted it, but because I had made 
 up my mind to injure Lott, as he had injured me." 
 
 He turned and kicked the ends of wood in the fire- 
 place into a heap, so that they began to burn again. 
 
 "You ought to know how they robbed my father 
 and me of our land old Lott and his friends. He had 
 bought a bit of a farm near ours fifty acres or so of 
 worn-out land. It wasn't worth a cent except for a few 
 fine old pine-trees on it that he could build his house 
 under. It wouldn't have raised five bales of cotton to 
 the whole fifty acres. He wanted to buy a strip of 
 land from my father to add to his. You know my 
 father had fed our land and nursed it until it was good 
 for something. And when he wouldn't sell . . . that's 
 when Lott began his dirty work. He went to the county 
 officials. He was always pretty thick with them with 
 that class of men. He was always stump-speaking and 
 organizing rallies and nosing in everywhere. And he 
 got them to order a new survey. That's what they 
 called it. And they gave him a strip of our land. I 
 reckon he paid them for it. 
 
 "I didn't take it to heart so much at first. That is, 
 I didn't take it hard, the way my father did." 
 
 There was brooding in his eyes for a moment, and 
 then he continued in a voice which he sought to re- 
 strain: "I never knew a man to care for land the way 
 my father does. I don't mean that he's ambitious to 
 own a lot of it nothing like that. I mean the way he 
 feels toward what he's got. He actually loves it. He 
 talks about it almost as if it was human; about what 
 we owe to it, and how we must cherish it. He's always 
 said it wasn't fair to take what it had to give without
 
 32 ROSY 
 
 giving something back. He was forever thinking how 
 he could make it richer; and sometimes when the plough 
 had passed I've seen him take a handful of earth into 
 his palm and look at it with a strange expression in his 
 eyes as if he could see flowers in it, or corn ; or as if it 
 were jewels, or a young bird, or something we must be 
 careful with, or gentle. He wasn't just thinking how 
 much he could get out of it. It seemed like he had the 
 idea we must play fair with the land if we expected the 
 land to be generous to us. That may sound like non- 
 sense to most people but it doesn't to me now. You 
 see, I got pretty near the same way of looking at it 
 from him. He used to say, when the people elected a 
 rascal to office, or anything in general went wrong: 
 'Well, Zeb, you can depend on your land, anyway if 
 you treat it right.' 
 
 "Still, he didn't say a lot when the county surveyor 
 had made a new survey. He just moved his fence and 
 let the strip go to old man Lott. But he used to sit 
 around of an evening and grieve, and wander out 
 across the fields that were left just as if a child of his 
 had gone to live in another man's house. 
 
 "And then Lott repeated his trick. I suppose he 
 thought it could be done because there was so little 
 fuss the first time. And they actually ordered another 
 survey, and gave old Lott another strip." 
 
 When he paused, Rosy broke the silence. " It was a 
 shame! " she cried. 
 
 He glanced at her curiously and then continued in an 
 even voice: "And I wouldn't stand it, that second time. 
 I lay awake all night trying to think how I could get 
 even. If he'd been a young man I'd have gone over 
 and beat him up. Be he's along toward seventy, 
 and got that trouble the asthma, or whatever it is. 
 You couldn't lay hands on a man like that. But the 
 next day I saw him out in his barnyard with his horse.
 
 ROSY 33 
 
 "I never could understand how so mean a man could 
 care for anything the way he cared for that horse of 
 his. He called it a high-school horse. He'd trained it 
 to do almost anything. It would put its forefeet on his 
 shoulders and follow him about the lot, without bear- 
 ing down scarcely at all; and put its head down between 
 its knees, praying, you know. And oh, I don't know 
 what all. A lot of tricks. 
 
 "And during the day I made up my mind I'd go over 
 and take his horse away from him." 
 
 Something of hardness and of grim humor came into 
 his tone with the last words, and he stood silently re- 
 calling his revenge and the outcome of it. 
 
 "I went over and took his horse away from him, all 
 right. I put a bridle and a saddle on it and led it out 
 of the lot. When he old Lott tried to interfere, I 
 just pushed him aside. And he stood staring at me, 
 his face like paper, his eyes ready to fall out of his 
 head. He couldn't make it out. He was just too sur- 
 prised to do anything at all. He didn't even go for 
 help. He just screamed at me, like an old woman, when 
 I opened the gate and rode away. 
 
 "I met people a number of parties when I got 
 into the main road. And they turned and looked 
 after me, riding old man Lett's pet horse. Everybody 
 knew the horse as well as they'd know the Pisgah 
 church steeple. But they didn't say a word. 
 
 "I hadn't given a thought to what I was going to do 
 in the wind-up. My only thought was to humiliate and 
 defy old Lott. But the more I thought of it the more 
 it seemed to me I'd be a fool if I just went back and 
 turned the horse into the lot where it belonged. And 
 so I kept on going. I kept on going until it was late 
 night until it was daybreak. And the first thing I 
 knew I'd reached the Rock. And all the time I kept 
 seeing, plain as a picture, my father's face, after they'd
 
 34 ROSY 
 
 robbed him of his second strip of land. And so when a 
 fellow stopped me at last and asked me if I wanted to 
 sell my horse, it came to me plain enough what to do. 
 YeSj'ft said, that was what I'd brought it to the Rock 
 for to sell it. I did sell it, too. 
 
 "I threw the money away or just the same as threw 
 it away. I didn't want to keep it, or anything from it 
 that I could keep. I was a good fellow for a day or 
 two, in all kinds of places. It was an adventure. And 
 when I'd got rid of that money I came back and 
 never told a soul where I'd been. To this day old man 
 Lott don't know where his horse went. 
 
 ". . . You know what happened after that. When 
 old Lott told me he was going to prove that I took his 
 horse, I told him he didn't have to prove it. I told him 
 I'd tell anybody, any place, that I took it. I asked 
 him what he meant to do about it. And I reminded 
 him of how he'd robbed us of our land. 
 
 "I reckon I must have been a little crazy-like for the 
 time being seeing only one side of what I'd done. I 
 didn't seem to know rightly how I stood until I heard 
 the judge say something about five years in the peni- 
 tentiary at the trial, I mean. And then I thought of 
 my father again, and how he'd feel having me locked 
 up with a lot of convicts. I was sorry then; but only 
 sorry for him. They'll never be able to make me say 
 I did wrong. I didn't. Still, I found that the same 
 fellows that could take away my father's land could 
 take away my liberty. 
 
 "But I'll ask you to remember, I didn't steal any 
 man's horse." 
 
 He turned and looked at the fire again. He put his 
 hand upon his trousers leg, testing it. "I'm as dry as 
 powder," he said. "I guess I'd better be going."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HE knew it was a sympathetic silence which followed 
 his recital; and it seemed good to look into the faces 
 of Rosy and Nat Minturn. He had realized that a 
 kind of antipathy existed between him and Minturn, 
 because each could see that the other looked at Rosy 
 with admiration now and again. But jealous thoughts 
 were put to flight for the moment when Nanny had 
 made it plain that he was not a common thief, but that 
 he had only obeyed a primitive instinct to avenge his 
 wrongs. 
 
 "It was a shame!" cried Minturn with generous 
 anger, using the words which Rosy had used a moment 
 earlier. 
 
 Again there was silence, which was like a healing 
 ointment to Nanny's bruised but unbending spirit. 
 It was Rosy who asked presently: 
 
 "You didn't tell us how they happened to turn you 
 loose and you to go back of your own free will. There's 
 been a good deal of talk about that. I couldn't under- 
 stand just how it was." 
 
 Nanny smiled faintly. "I reckon it was some of this 
 loving-kindness business that idle people play with 
 when they don't know what else to do. They put me 
 on my honor, they said; as if no harm could come to 
 me if I'd be good. I didn't ask them if anybody had 
 ever put old man Lott on his honor him or the thieves 
 who robbed my father of his land. I'd had word about 
 my mother . . . and the warden told me to go home. 
 He gave me three days." 
 
 35
 
 36 ROSY 
 
 Rosy's searching eyes were still turned upon him 
 with a question in them, and he went on: 
 
 "It's not uncommon any more letting men out of 
 prison, I mean. A lot of wardens are doing it letting 
 big batches out sometimes for Christmas or the like 
 of that. Some crooks have a better time in prison than 
 out with a lot of fool people looking at them and talk- 
 ing about them, as if they were interesting, and women 
 visiting them and sending them presents." 
 
 When he paused for a moment Minturn looked at 
 him furtively, curiously. He was thinking: "He's a 
 convict himself, yet he's talking as if he hadn't any- 
 thing in common with them at all." 
 
 "My idea is," resumed Nanny, "that fool people 
 ought not to be allowed to make a kind of game out of 
 crime and the men that commit crimes. If a man's a 
 criminal he ought to be locked up until he feels like 
 behaving himself. A man that's any ways right don't 
 want any man's charity no, nor his gifts. I want 
 what's mine. I want to pay a fair price for what I 
 get. And I want other men to fare the same; no better 
 and no worse." 
 
 The last words were given the quality of a peroration 
 by certain exterior aids. Out in the road his horse 
 whinnied to him beseechingly; and before that plain- 
 tive sound ended a flash of lightning made the interior 
 of the hut starkly white. Thunder followed; a deep 
 rumble which rose and fell and died away at last in a 
 thousand ravines and abysses. 
 
 There was silence then. Nanny had said his say, 
 and Rosy was looking up at him with a kind of dumb 
 craving, as if she would have liked to comfort him and 
 knew that she could not. Only Minturn seemed to be 
 giving his mind to definite, progressive thought. A 
 beam of purposefulness began to light his eye. He
 
 ROSY 37 
 
 frowned slightly, like a man who laboriously shapes an 
 intricate thought. Presently he said, in a tone marked 
 by indecision: 
 
 "And you're going back and give yourself up to 
 them again?" 
 
 "What else? I want to set myself right, so that 
 when I come out my hands will be free to fight so 
 that I can show everybody I'm a better man than old 
 Lott or his kind. Yes, I'm going back. I'm going to 
 be over at the junction at midnight to-night to catch 
 the down train." 
 
 Minturn, nursing one knee in his clasped hands and 
 looking intently at the floor, began to weave the web 
 his mind had fashioned or so it would have seemed. 
 "It seems a shameful waste," he began almost lightly, 
 "at a time when the country has got so much for its 
 young men to do. You might be going away to one 
 of the cantonments, Zeb, instead. . . . You might be 
 getting ready to go to France, as the rest of us will be 
 doing when our time comes." 
 
 Nanny shook his head. "No chance for me," he said 
 moodily. "We were registered, you know, a few weeks 
 back. I mean the men in the penitentiary. I wasn't. 
 It seemed I was born a year too soon." He pondered 
 for a time and then, glancing at Minturn keenly, he 
 added: "You needn't have any doubt about my want- 
 ing to go. Nothing like that. You know . . . from 
 my place inside the walls you can hear the bugles 
 blowing in a field not far away. The recruits are out 
 there, getting ready to go to war. You can hear the 
 commands; you can hear the marching feet. And that's 
 the thing that has come nearest of all to breaking me 
 to making me cry for mercy. I've sometimes wished 
 there would be such a need for men before we're through 
 with it all that they wouldn't ask a man how old he
 
 3 8 ROSY 
 
 was, nor anything about his condition. You know, if a 
 convict is any man at all he pines away not because of 
 what's inside the walls but because of what's outside. 
 It's not that your work is such punishment; but some- 
 times while you're doing it you picture a field in the 
 early morning, and long furrows, and the birds coming 
 to follow your plough, and children on their way to 
 school, and voices calling in another field. And now 
 there's another kind of pictures I see. I can see the 
 recruits marching outside the walls, holding their 
 heads up and their chests out I can hear the command : 
 'Keep your chests out!' I can see them. You know, 
 those young fellows . . . there's some among them 
 that might never amount to anything in ordinary times. 
 You might say nothing would ever wake them up. 
 Yet think of them now ! They're going to have their 
 part in the biggest thing that ever was. I think of 
 that; and then I think how I'm doing common labor 
 with a lot of clods a lot of dirty thieves and such; or 
 sitting in the shade of a wall say on Sunday or in the 
 evenings watching the shadows come closer to me or 
 creeping away from me, and thinking that each day 
 will never come to an end. Great God ! if they'd come 
 to me and say: 'You're fit to go, too . . .' ' He could 
 not continue. His fists were clinched, he was breathing 
 deeply, rapidly. It was plain that he had been made to 
 touch upon a subject which was like a deep, festering 
 wound. 
 
 Rosy sat with her face turned away, a picture of 
 helpless sorrow. But Mintum had been watching Nanny 
 keenly, and now it was plain that he had undergone a 
 strange transformation. His eyes gleamed with a joy 
 which was not to be hid with joy, yet with a certain 
 uneasiness, too; for he had not yet solved the problem 
 of turning Nanny's heroic and elated attitude to his
 
 ROSY 39 
 
 own secret and peculiar need. Yet he sprang to his 
 feet. 
 
 "You're fine, Zeb ! You're splendid !" he cried. 
 
 But Nanny seemed scarcely to heed him at all. He 
 brought himself together and put on a brisk manner. 
 "I've stayed too long," he said. "I've got to get back 
 to Pisgah in time for the night train." 
 
 But Rosy came forward now, a deepening anxiety in 
 her eyes. "I'm afraid it's going to storm again," she 
 said reluctantly. "It's an awful journey to make in the 
 night when it's storming. What would happen, Zeb, 
 if you didn't take the train until to-morrow night?" 
 
 "Ah, I mustn't miss it," was his reply. "To-morrow 
 morning that was the time set. I might as well not 
 go back at all unless I go back when I said I would." 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure that can't be true," she cried; but she 
 could see at once that it was useless to plead with him. 
 He was energetically slipping into his coat. 
 
 He turned and sought out Mintum; Minturn, who 
 was frowning and who was obviously struggling with a 
 problem which was too intricate for him. He shook 
 hands with Minturn; but absent-mindedly, as if he 
 were not thinking of him. And then he turned to Rosy. 
 
 "Good-by, Rosy," he said briskly. "I'm going to 
 turn my horse into your lot you'll find some way of 
 sending it down the mountain in a day or two. And 
 I'm going to ask you for the loan of a lantern. I'll see 
 that it comes back to you. And I'm sure thankful to 
 you for your shelter and all." He shook hands with 
 her, too; and while he did so he was aware that Min- 
 turn had grown eager and restless as if unwonted 
 thoughts were struggling within him for expression. 
 He was wondering what was the matter with Nat as 
 he moved toward the door. 
 
 But his final survey of the scene without sent him
 
 40 ROSY 
 
 back' into the room with a cry of dismay. At the very 
 instant of the door's opening a flash of lightning lighted 
 the mountain and deafening thunder followed. There 
 was also a sudden patter of rain. 
 
 "You'll have to stay all night," declared Rosy. 
 
 But Nanny supposed she was addressing Minturn. 
 Minturn would have to remain in the hut for the night, 
 certainly. He was a soft fellow, and besides there was 
 no urgent reason for him to leave the safe harbor which 
 Rosy could offer him. 
 
 He said nothing. He thought Rosy would provide a 
 lantern' immediately. 
 
 "Wait, Zeb!" It was Min turn's faltering voice. 
 ."Wait . . ." 
 
 And just then something quite disconcerting occurred. 
 The door escaped from Nanny's hand and flew wide 
 open with a great noise. The light was extinguished. 
 
 Nanny closed the door with difficulty, using his 
 shoulder against it. 
 
 "It seems as if " he began. And then the three 
 persons in the hut drew together instinctively Nanny 
 and Rosy with heads erect, valiantly, and Minturn 
 shrinking as from a blow. 
 
 An ominous roar arose in the distance. It steadily 
 became deeper, more powerful. Rising above it for 
 just an instant there was the sound of a horse's hoofs 
 dashing along the rocky bench road. Nanny's horse 
 had taken fright and had broken away. 
 
 And then that deep, shuddering roar ceased to be 
 contained within a single note. Its particular elements 
 asserted themselves. There was the loud report of 
 tree-trunks being snapped off like reeds, and then there 
 was the crashing sound of the trees themselves falling 
 to the ground. 
 
 A tornado was passing over the mountain.
 
 ROSY 41 
 
 The hut trembled and rocked; and then it seemed to 
 brace itself as if it were a sentient thing, resisting a 
 foe. And for the space of long moments there was 
 silence within, while the shocking chaos of sounds passed 
 overhead. Trees were falling near by and then at a 
 distance. It seemed that the hut must crumble and 
 collapse presently; but minute by minute the strain 
 upon it diminished. The din outside was waning. 
 And then the storm had passed. There was now the 
 almost soothing patter of rain. 
 
 Nanny relighted the lamp. He addressed Rosy as 
 if nothing at all terrifying had occurred: "Did you 
 say you could lend me a lantern, Rosy?" 
 
 "Oh, must you go?" she pleaded. There was a 
 lovely solicitude in her voice and eyes. 
 
 "It's over now," he returned. "Yes, I must go." 
 
 She went almost humbly and brought a lantern; and 
 while she was gone Minturn found his voice. Terror 
 and the effort to conceal it had driven from his mind 
 the plan he had been considering whatever it had been. 
 
 "I'd like you to take my rain-coat, Zeb," he said. 
 "And didn't you say you'd lost your hat? You 
 must take my hat, too. I'll get along very well with- 
 out them." 
 
 Relief from imminent peril seemed to have made him 
 eager to be kind in a simple, neighborly way. He went 
 and brought his hat and his rain-coat. He handed the 
 hat to Nanny, and held the coat in his hands, ready for 
 Nanny to turn about and get into it. "It will be a 
 close fit," he said apologetically, "but it'll be better 
 than none." 
 
 "No, no," protested Nanny, "I'll not take them. 
 You'll need them." 
 
 But Rosy had now returned from the kitchen, a 
 lantern in her hand.
 
 42 ROSY 
 
 "Yes, you will, Zeb," she said with authority. "You 
 mustn't be foolish. I'll not have you leave my 
 house . . ." 
 
 She gazed at him with sudden ardor; she seemed 
 unable to finish her sentence. And Nanny, strangely 
 moved, said shortly: "All right." 
 
 A moment later he had gone, without another word. 
 
 During a calm which occurred half an hour later she 
 went out of the hut. She was gone only a moment or 
 two, but when she returned she held Nanny's hat in 
 her hands. "It had caught fast in the crotch of the 
 tree," she explained. "Here, you'd better put it away 
 up in the attic."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HE did not go back to the penitentiary. 
 
 Two days later a dark ru.mor began to spread through- 
 out Pisgah and up the mountain road and over the 
 mountain. Zeb Nanny had broken his word. There 
 had been at first a confidential telephone-message from 
 the warden at Little Rock to the sheriff at Pisgah: 
 Was anything known of the whereabouts of Nanny, 
 and could any reason be suggested for his failure to re- 
 turn to prison? 
 
 Word of this message had gotten about somehow, 
 and upon a small foundation of fact a large super- 
 structure of rumor was promptly built. Those who 
 knew Zeb best were gravely fearful that he had been 
 killed during the storm. (It appeared that he had been 
 seen riding moodily in the direction of the mountain 
 the night before he was to have returned to Little 
 Rock, and it was soon reported with authority that the 
 horse he had ridden had been found the next day on 
 Moab, in the stable of the man who had formerly 
 owned him.) And there were those who sought to ac- 
 quire reputations for cleverness by suggesting that the 
 horse might have been turned adrift simply for the 
 purpose of creating a wrong impression, and that the 
 man was in fact hiding somewhere possibly with some 
 lawless mountaineer, or perhaps in one of the many 
 caves in the mountain. 
 
 Rumor gave place to knowledge on the third day 
 following the storm. The Pisgah Argus, copying from 
 
 43
 
 44 ROSY 
 
 one of the Little Rock papers, printed the news: Nanny 
 had failed to return to prison, according to promise, 
 and a general search for him had been ordered. The 
 usual machinery had been set in motion : police systems 
 in many cities, private agencies; rewards were offered, 
 a description supplied. 
 
 Sheriff Hammond of Pisgah came up and made a 
 superficial search on the mountain. He did not make 
 any concealment of his opinion that he would not find 
 Nanny on the mountain. Nanny had not been killed 
 during the storm, he maintained. He knew the moun- 
 tain better than most men knew what was in their own 
 pockets. He would have found a safe hiding-place in 
 time of danger. Nor would he be hiding anywhere about 
 the mountain. He was not the sort of man who hides, 
 from anything. He had given his word to return to 
 Little Rock, and he would have started back to Little 
 Rock, according to his promise of these things the 
 sheriff professed to be morally certain. 
 
 When it was pointed out to him that he had blocked 
 the way to plausible explanations, he admitted that he 
 had done so. But he added: "You never can tell what 
 any man "will do. They ain't a man but what'll surprise 
 you before the end of a day's ride. But they's certain 
 men . . . you can say under oath that some things 
 they won't do." Sheriff Hammond had come into con- 
 tact with all those forces which tend to eliminate a pro- 
 nounced dialect from the speech of a people, but he 
 nevertheless retained certain somewhat quaint manner- 
 isms in his speech. He added with vigor: "Zeb Nanny 
 wouldn't break his word to no man. He wasn't a coward 
 and he wasn't covetous and they is the on'y humans 
 that lies. I don't know where Zeb is, but I'm pretty 
 certain I know where he ain't." 
 
 However, he searched the mountain, looking into
 
 ROSY 45 
 
 ravines and prodding around under fallen timber and 
 disturbed earth. But of Nanny he found no trace. 
 
 It should be recorded that Pisgah and the surround- 
 ing territory were inclined to accept Sheriff Ham- 
 mond's judgment touching Nanny. The sheriff's 
 speech was sometimes conceded to be amusing; his 
 original turns of phrase were repeated with laughter. 
 But for all that, Hammond was not a comic figure. He 
 was a strikingly picturesque figure: immense, keen- 
 eyed, rather fiercely mustached. His garments were in 
 keeping with his calling. He wore a calfskin waistcoat 
 and corduroy trousers and a big hat with a depressed 
 brim which all but concealed his eyes when you met 
 him. But he was modest he could be all but softly 
 deferential at critical moments; and he was at once 
 courageous and kind. These qualities were tacitly 
 conceded by all who knew him like axioms which un- 
 derlie certain problems in mathematics. 
 
 As for Zeb Nanny, there was no solution of the mys- 
 tery which involved him until it came, simply and 
 quietly, four days after he had disappeared. It came 
 in the form of a letter to Rosy Woodridge. 
 
 Rosy's permanent post-office was Pisgah. She might 
 have had it changed in the summer-time to Moab for 
 there was a post-office on Moab to serve the more 
 exacting visitors to the summit. But she so seldom re- 
 ceived any mail that she did not take the trouble to 
 make the change. There was, however, a pleasantly 
 informal plan by which the people of Pisgah and its 
 neighboring country served one another. 
 
 When the postmaster at Pisgah had a letter for Rosy 
 he held himself alert for a sight of any neighbor of 
 Rosy's who might deliver her mail to her. He would 
 go quite out into the street to intercept a man in a 
 wagon who was on his way to Moab. "A letter for
 
 46 ROSY 
 
 Rosy Woodridge," he would say in a matter-of-fact 
 tone. "I know you're going that way." Or he would 
 forward Rosy's occasional letter or newspaper or cir- 
 cular to Moab with the Moab mail, knowing that the 
 postmaster on the summit would be on the lookout for 
 one of Rosy's bench neighbors, thus insuring the early 
 delivery of her mail. 
 
 On the fourth day after Zeb Nanny's disappearance, 
 during the sunset hour when Rosy was preparing supper 
 for herself and Minturn who was still her guest old 
 Jacob Feld came and knocked with a cautious air at her 
 front door. 
 
 He would have told you that he did not know why 
 Rosy had adopted the practice, just of late, of keeping 
 her front door closed both day and night. Perhaps he 
 would have professed not to have noticed this marked 
 variation from the bench custom. 
 
 When Rosy heard the summons at her door she hesi- 
 tated long enough to glance significantly at Minturn; 
 and very singularly, it would have seemed he hastily 
 and silently climbed the ladder up into the attic, just 
 as he had done on an earlier occasion when, in the 
 night, Zeb Nanny had stumbled against the closed 
 window. 
 
 Then Rosy opened the door with a suggestion of 
 having been delayed a moment by some household task. 
 "Oh, Mr. Feld!" she exclaimed cordially. 
 
 "Your mail, Rosy," explained the old man. He 
 handed her a letter and a newspaper. "I just came 
 down from the summit." 
 
 He was turning away almost before he had explained 
 his mission, and Rosy looked after him almost fondly, 
 yet with a question in her eyes, too. It seemed to her 
 that Jacob Feld was not behaving quite naturally of 
 late, and she wondered. . . .
 
 ROSY 47 
 
 She was not wise in the matter of those things which 
 come by mail. She would not have been quite sure 
 whether an envelope contained a circular or a letter. 
 And she was not expecting a letter. She placed the 
 envelope and the newspaper on a table. 
 
 She did not give another thought to them until 
 after supper, and then, while Minturn sat reading the 
 newspaper, the Pisgah Argus, she opened her letter 
 for it was a letter, and an amazingly long one. 
 
 She read: 
 
 If I do wrong in writing to you, Rosy, I ask you to excuse 
 me, but there is something I cannot bear not to tell you. It 
 is this You have given my life back to me. You have done 
 so by making me welcome when I came to your house and by 
 showing me that you did not wish me to come to harm. Not 
 by what you said so much as by what you are. I cannot think 
 of the world with evil in my mind, or even indifference, while I 
 know that you are in it. I hope you will care to know that 
 hereafter whenever I have to make a choice in anything in 
 what I shall say or do I shall always think first of you, because 
 I know that you are good. 
 
 I think better days lie ahead for me, thanks to you and to Nat 
 too a little, though his help was by a strange chance. I want 
 to tell you about that too, and maybe you will want to tell 
 Nat when you see him again though I hope he will not speak 
 of it for a while at least. 
 
 You know he let me have his rain-coat when I came away? 
 I think in a way his doing so really saved me. I did not reach 
 Pisgah in time to get the night train. In fact I did not reach 
 Pisgah at all. The road was very bad there were many fallen 
 trees everything was confusion. And when I saw that I should 
 not be able to catch the train I began making wholly different 
 plans. I found a little cave on Moab, very warm and dry, and 
 there I slept the rest of the night and part of next day. I waited 
 for night again, and by that time the road had been cleared 
 partly and it was not so dark. I set out again, like a thief, hid- 
 ing from every one, and did not stop until I reached the junc- 
 tion. I will not tell you all that happened on the way the nar- 
 row escapes I had. At the junction I caught a freight-train. I 
 was afraid to wait for day and ride on the passenger. I stole
 
 48 ROSY 
 
 my way to Little Rock, no one seeing me, not even the brake- 
 man on the train. 
 
 I will leave out a good deal here and tell you about the next 
 day, when I had the narrowest escape of all. I had eaten in a 
 restaurant and then you will guess what I meant to do. I 
 meant to find a recruiting office and enlist. I knew there were 
 chances to run I mean, that some one who knew me would 
 see me. I came out of the restaurant and stopped on the street 
 a minute, trying to think how to find a recruiting office. Just 
 then I saw two policemen coming, walking side by side. And 
 then I did the wrong thing. I stepped into a doorway, hoping 
 the policemen would pass without seeing me. But they saw 
 me. And I could not have looked very good to them after 
 riding on the freight, you know, and being nervous. They 
 spoke to me roughly as if they knew everything. They searched 
 me, and I held out my arms and let them. I was sure they would 
 find nothing. I thought I had nothing beside the little money 
 I had been given to buy my ticket with. While they searched 
 I tried to think what to say about who I was, you know, and 
 what I was doing. I tried to think what name I should give 
 them if they asked what my name was. I knew I must not tell 
 them my own name, for fear they might already have been 
 told to search for a man of that name. And then one of them 
 pulled a letter out of the rain-coat I had on. As he did so he 
 demanded "What's your name?" And I saw the letter in 
 his hand, and I took a chance. "Nat Minturn," I said. That 
 seemed to satisfy him. He asked, not so roughly, "What are 
 you doing here?" And I said, "I'm looking for a recruiting 
 office. I want to enlist." That saved me. Both the officers 
 behaved differently right away. One of them said, "All right, 
 we'll show you a recruiting office." And they did. There was 
 one not far away. They both went with me. They became 
 friendly. When we came to the recruiting office one of them 
 said to the man in charge, "Sergeant, here's a man looking for 
 you." And the sergeant asked me what my name was and I 
 told him it was Nat Minturn. 
 
 I could hardly help myself, Rosy not without throwing 
 away my last chance. I hope it was not a very wrong thing 
 that I did. I will try hard not to make Nat ashamed that I 
 borrowed his name. 
 
 And I'm enlisted now, Rosy, and on my way already far 
 from Little Rock.
 
 ROSY 49 
 
 Guard my secret, Rosy guard it as I shall always have to 
 guard another secret: the things my heart and I whisper to each 
 other whenever I write your name. 
 
 She read the letter slowly to the end; incredulously, 
 at first, and almost dully, but with a slowly dawning 
 light and a deep rapture beginning to stir within her. 
 
 She had read to the end and had gone back to the 
 beginning when she was startled by a loud cry from 
 Minturn. He had brought his hands together sharply, 
 crushing the Argus between them, and he cried out her 
 name in a tone of consternation mingled with joy: 
 
 "Rosy!" 
 
 She laid her letter on her lap and looked at him with 
 a certain lack of responsiveness. It seemed to her that 
 nothing he could say would be of the slightest impor- 
 tance compared with the glorious news she had just 
 read. "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 He began to straighten out the sheets in his hand. 
 "There's a list of names here," he began, "copied from 
 the Gazette the Little Rock paper, you know. It's a 
 list of Arkansas men who have enlisted for service in the 
 army. And whose name do you suppose is on the list? " 
 
 She smiled strangely and held the letter caressingly 
 between her two hands. "I know what name it is," 
 she said. "It is your name." 
 
 He stared at her incredulously. "Yes," he said won- 
 deringly. He found the place in the paper and read: 
 "Nat Minturn, Pisgah." His eyes met hers again. 
 "But how . . .?" he began. 
 
 "This is a letter from Zeb," she replied, indicating 
 the sheets on her lap. "Wait I'll read some of it to 
 you." 
 
 He had put forth his hand for the letter, but she 
 drew back from him. "I'll read," she repeated. 
 
 She read aloud that part of the letter describing the
 
 50 ROSY 
 
 encounter with the policemen. She brought out with a 
 certain impressiveness the final sentence: / will try hard 
 not to make Nat asJiamed that I borrowed his name. She 
 raised her eyes with a sudden soft entreaty in them. 
 "You don't mind, do you?" she asked. 
 
 She was amazed by the effect her question had upon 
 him. He dashed the paper aside and leaned toward 
 her. There was an unwonted intensity in his manner. 
 "Mind?" he echoed; "mind? Why, the poor fool I 
 mean, I'd have given all I ever hope to possess ten 
 times over to have him do the very thing he has done. 
 I wanted to beg him to do it the night he was here. 
 I I was in despair because I couldn't bring myself to 
 ask him. But there was something about him . . ." 
 
 "But why?" she asked, trying vainly to read his 
 eyes. 
 
 He shrank back within himself and for a time sat 
 frowning and staring into vacancy. He aroused him- 
 self at length. 
 
 "Rosy," he began, "when I came here to your house 
 and asked you to hide me . . ." He broke off and 
 flushed dully and cast about helplessly for words. 
 
 "Goon, Nat," she said. 
 
 "I told you I had had a quarrel with my father that 
 I wanted to hide from him" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "That wasn't true I mean, it wasn't the whole 
 truth. It was when we were all registering all the 
 young men, I mean. And I didn't want to register. 
 I didn't register. I didn't want to go into the army. 
 You understand? I told my father I was going away to 
 enlist that I didn't want to wait until I had to go. We 
 did have a quarrel about that. He said I was a fool. 
 He didn't know what the truth was. And I slipped 
 away he thought I was going to Little Rock, I think
 
 ROSY 51 
 
 and came up here. Just as Nanny did without a 
 soul knowing." He paused a moment. He did not 
 look at her; it seemed that he had difficulty in doing 
 so. But presently he lifted his eyes and added: "Mind? 
 I should say I don't mind. It's like the wildest kind of 
 a dream come true."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE next day was a Sunday a very lovely day. 
 
 Rosy escaped from the house rather early in the 
 morning. She wanted to be alone she wanted to 
 think. There was a certain bewilderment in her mind 
 certain partly unformed doubts. She was thinking 
 of Minturn, and how he had come to her house, and 
 why. 
 
 There is a limit even to the hospitality of the moun- 
 tain folk. There was a limit even to Rosy's hospital- 
 ity. So it was that when she lifted her eyes to the 
 limpid skies there was an expression of dubiousness in 
 them. 
 
 She had seen no impropriety in harboring Minturn. 
 Her parents would have harbored any one in need of 
 shelter. Why shouldn't she have done so? She had 
 always liked Nat. He was a quiet, pleasant young fel- 
 low. She had always felt a little sorry for him. He 
 had had a way of looking wistfully at the other boys 
 when they all came up on the mountain to play as if 
 somehow he envied them. He was less hardy, less 
 venturesome than they. The other boys did not treat 
 him very considerately. They seemed to be implying 
 by all their words and deeds that there was a difference 
 between him and them. 
 
 It had seemed to her a lark to take him in and to 
 make a secret of his visit. She had heard many unkind 
 things of his father, who had the reputation of being a 
 mean, heartless man. That made it all the more de- 
 lightful to befriend his son. 
 
 But Nat hadn't told her that he meant to remain in- 
 
 s*
 
 ROSY 53 
 
 definitely. And it made a difference his expecting, 
 perhaps, to remain a very long time. 
 
 The image of Nanny crossed her mind; and that made 
 her think of Minturn again. She saw him in a new 
 light. Minturn had not wanted to go to the war but 
 Nanny had esteemed it a great privilege to do so. Not, 
 she felt sure, because he was in prison. He would have 
 wished to do so in any event. And she tried to decide 
 what this difference between the two men meant. 
 
 The real significance of the war had not been brought 
 at all close to her as yet. Nanny's going did not, 
 therefore, assume in her eyes a matter of stern duty. 
 It made him appear rather a sort of crusader going 
 forth to lift his hand against a universal evil but not 
 a specific evil. But his going was splendid; and there- 
 fore Nat's desire not to go was . . . What? 
 
 The wreck of a picturesque, low stone wall extended 
 part of the way between Rosy's house and the high- 
 way. It had been begun by Rosy's father many years 
 ago. He had built it little by little, in a leisurely, al- 
 most purposeless fashion. There were years during 
 which he was forever bending his eyes upon the ground 
 wherever he went; and occasionally he stooped and 
 picked up a rock of a certain size and shape; and those 
 who saw him came in time to know that when he did 
 this it was because he had found a rock which fitted 
 some crevice in his wall. 
 
 He had never finished the self-imposed task. When 
 he gave over looking for rocks of a certain size and 
 shape, he explained that he had no need of a wall before 
 his house, after all; though those who knew him best 
 knew that it was precisely in keeping with his character 
 that he had abandoned the task he had begun. It was 
 their belief that Sam Woodridge excellent man and 
 neighbor that he was had the one lamentable fault of
 
 54 ROSY 
 
 never finishing anything. There was no surprise among 
 them when the wall, which had grown for many years 
 with something of the celerity of a coral reef as if it 
 were a sort of larger insect growth ceased forever to 
 grow at all. 
 
 ... As she pondered, Rosy climbed up to one of the 
 few remaining flat surfaces on top of the wall, and gave 
 herself wholly over to meditation. She sat rather 
 sedately, with ripe peaches of a dusky rosiness hanging 
 over her head. A flock of hens with brilliantly red 
 gills and combs and bright, silly eyes dusted them- 
 selves in a corner of the wall near by. They ruffled 
 themselves with such untimely industry that Rosy 
 could not bear to look at them. The heat of summer 
 was oppressive, even on the mountain. 
 
 Before her the mountain ascended sharply, clear to 
 the summit. A little to her right the immense and 
 mysterious Sphinx Rock one of the sights of the bench 
 road which were pointed out to visitors hung pre- 
 cariously in its place. The mystery of the Sphinx Rock 
 was its seeming instability. What held it in its place 
 there on the steep slope? It was nearly round and of a 
 fairly smooth surface an immense object fully a hun- 
 dred feet in diameter. Why should it not, at any mo- 
 ment, go hurtling across the bench and go plunging 
 down into the valley, thousands of feet below? The 
 mountain folk did not know. They did not inquire too 
 curiously. To have done so would have been to dispel 
 its mystery. They only knew that as far back as mem- 
 ory extended the Sphinx Rock had lain perched there, 
 seemingly defying the law of gravity. 
 
 It had always held a strange fascination for Rosy; 
 as if she held that as long as it remained in its place 
 the fact must be accepted by her as a sign that life 
 had nothing of change in store for her. And sometimes
 
 ROSY 55 
 
 it seemed to her that her days were dreadfully long and 
 uneventful. 
 
 She sat with her shoulders drooping a little and her 
 face pitched back, dreamily regarding the Sphinx Rock 
 her own face almost as inscrutable as the story of the 
 rock itself; and for once she was unaware that a little 
 lizard which she really believed had come to know her 
 had emerged from its place in the wall and stood pant- 
 ing in the sunshine almost within arm's length of her. 
 She was thinking that, after all, something had hap- 
 pened. She was hiding a man in her house. And she 
 was thinking that perhaps she should have preferred 
 that just this sort of thing hadn't happened. 
 
 She was aroused by the noise of a party of men com- 
 ing along the road. There were Springer and Doctor 
 Garner old, and with only one arm and half a dozen 
 other bench men. They were mending the road. 
 
 Sunday was a day of special labor on Moab. During 
 six days in the week the men of the mountain attended 
 to their own personal affairs, often doing next to noth- 
 ing. But the Sabbath was devoted to public service; 
 and when the road needed mending, Sunday was the 
 day set aside for mending it 
 
 The storm had done much damage to the road, much 
 of which had had to be repaired the next day. The ob- 
 stacles which had made traffic impossible had been 
 promptly removed. But now certain lesser tasks were 
 being performed. 
 
 The men bore their responsibilities lightly, convers- 
 ing in a fragmentary manner as they worked. 
 
 Springer was the noisiest member of the group. He 
 was what the bench folk called an opinionated man; 
 you gained nothing at all by disagreeing with him. 
 
 Springer was now speaking, and Rosy listened to 
 what he had to say. It seemed to her that everybody
 
 56 ROSY 
 
 in the world must be talking about Zeb Nanny just 
 now, and wondering what had become of him. Since 
 Zeb's letter had reached her she felt a new, a tremendous 
 sense of responsibility with reference to him. 
 
 But Springer was not speaking of Nanny. "America 
 is all right," he said, as if in response to something one 
 of the others had said, "but what does it want to fight 
 against Germany for? It's got nothing against Ger- 
 many. Germany . . . it's the best place of all for a 
 poor man. Apples grow along the roads, and there's 
 always a lot of fun at harvest-time, with sausage and 
 good rye bread, and maybe something to drink out of a 
 jug and singing! America won't make anything by 
 going into the war, anyway." 
 
 Old Doctor Garner straightened up and stared at 
 Springer. He was of very little help as a road-mender. 
 His own idea was that he brought to the task the bene- 
 fit of a superior intellect. He was regarded by most of 
 the other men as a not very detrimental interference. 
 He now presented an aspect of a peculiar instability 
 as if he might explode or rise straight up into the air if 
 Springer said very much more. That lost arm of his 
 had been left at Gettysburg. He didn't like Springer, 
 who was known to get a German-language newspaper 
 from St. Louis every week. 
 
 "Anyway," continued Springer, serenely unaware of 
 the storm brewing in the old doctor's hard, frosty head, 
 "it won't do any good. America can't do anything. 
 Germany will win. The Germans are the best soldiers. 
 The Americans are all right up to a certain point; but 
 when it comes to fighting, they'll only go so far and 
 when they hear the shooting they will drop their guns 
 and run." 
 
 Doctor Garner flung his spade to the rocky road with 
 a great crash. "Springer," he announced, "if you say
 
 ROSY 57 
 
 that again, now or at any other time, I'll cut your ears 
 off." He was trembling from head to foot. 
 
 Another bench man interposed. He was quite in 
 sympathy with the old doctor, but he saw no adequate 
 reason for trouble. "Why, Doc," he said with a smile, 
 "you don't want to fight German style, do you?" 
 
 "I'll cut your ears off," repeated the doctor, without 
 removing his eyes from Springer. 
 
 Springer was merely bewildered. "I didn't mean 
 nothing," he declared. "They might fight all right, but 
 they'll never go across the ocean to fight Germany. 
 They'll refuse to go when it comes to getting on the 
 ships." 
 
 "They'll do what their government asks them to 
 do," said the doctor. "We've got a government in this 
 country. Don't forget that. The trouble with you 
 Germans is that you can't believe in authority unless 
 you see the street filled with helmets every time you 
 look out of the window." 
 
 Springer doggedly addressed himself to the task of 
 removing a decayed limb which lay in his path. Never- 
 theless, he persisted: "Germany is a better country 
 than this, where you've got the big trusts, and rich men 
 buying up what the poor people need : wheat and oil and 
 coal." 
 
 "Then why don't you go back to Germany?" de- 
 manded the doctor. 
 
 It was Springer's turn to be enraged now. "Why 
 don't I go back?" he thundered; "why don't I go back? 
 That same fool question! Can any man go back? 
 Can you go back to your youth again ? " 
 
 "I can't," said the doctor more calmly. "And it's 
 a wise man that knows that, Springer. It's not Germany 
 that you regret. It's your youth, that looks rosier and 
 rosier to you all the time while your bones stiffen and
 
 58 ROSY 
 
 your blood thins and you forget how you had to work. 
 You're a fool for thinking it's the country you're in 
 that's to blame because life doesn't look to you the way 
 it did when you was twenty-one." 
 
 They all resumed their work then, and presently 
 they had moved so far down the road that Rosy could 
 not hear them any more. But they had brought her a 
 new consciousness of the war; of the war, and of Nanny 
 and of Minturn. 
 
 Presently she aroused herself and jumped down from 
 the wall as if she had made up her mind not to wait 
 for the Sphinx Rock to fall, but to take life into her own 
 hands and do with it what she could. 
 
 She went into the barnyard and disappered in the 
 ramshackle shed at the back; and when she appeared 
 again she wore a hat and was seated in a buggy drawn 
 by an ancient horse. Plainly she had gone into the 
 house between times and put on another dress. And 
 now it was evident that she meant to drive somewhere. 
 
 The carriage in which she sat must have provoked 
 derision in some localities, though it was considered 
 quite good enough for mountain use. And the horse 
 she drove was an ancient, self-willed creature that had 
 been a family pet for twenty years. (Rosy had kept 
 the horse after the death of her parents, not because 
 she supposed she should have frequent use for it, but 
 because it had always seemed like one of the family, and 
 because of its persistent and disquieting habit of seem- 
 ing to ask every day or so, in its own way, what had be- 
 come of Sam Woodridge.) 
 
 She drove with an air of caution; not because she felt 
 nervous at the thought of the task which she had set 
 herself, but obviously for reasons which were secret 
 and her own. She had locked her front door, which 
 Was contrary to her practice and to the practice of all
 
 ROSY 59 
 
 her neighbors; and then she had driven away with her 
 eyes straight before her, as if there could be no reason 
 at all for her to look back, either in fact or in fancy. 
 
 She traversed the bench road thoughtfully, quite 
 contrary to her habit. For the bench road had always 
 been a place of endless enticements to her. To her 
 right the mountain ascended sharply: a rock-ribbed, 
 verdure-clad wall; and looking up one might catch 
 glimpses, through the tangle of vines and stunted trees, 
 of the aristocratic summer cottages up on the summit; 
 cottages which spelled romance to all the mountain 
 folk, since they were constant reminders of that favored 
 class of men and women who did not have to work in 
 the heat of summer, but who could seek comfortable 
 spots where they need do nothing but spend money for 
 comforts and luxuries. 
 
 They came from remote and scattered places; a fact 
 which added another element of romance to their lives. 
 Some were the families of professional men or mer- 
 chants in Memphis and Little Rock; and there were 
 others about whom little was known, who came from 
 the far-away cities of the hot Texas plains. And there 
 were a few who came down from St. Louis, and spoke 
 a little patronizingly of "going back to nature," and who 
 claimed that Moab was really more comfortable than 
 the lake resorts or the Eastern watering-places. The 
 summer colony life was at its height now. The Pisgah 
 hack, making two trips daily, was always filled with the 
 happy, enviable strangers, coming or going. 
 
 On Rosy's left, as she drove along the bench road, 
 there was a different and, on the whole, perhaps a 
 more wholesome prospect: the gardens of her own 
 neighbors, homely and unpretentious, with a dizzy 
 vista beyond of valley and river, lying like a vast, 
 glorious picture beneath the observer's eyes. The
 
 60 ROSY 
 
 gardens were roughly waited at the foot, so that no 
 absent-minded individual would miss his footing and 
 be precipitated some thousands of feet through trees 
 and over rocky crags into the corn-field or cotton-field 
 of some valley farmer, or into the river. 
 
 Rosy was not sorry when she passed the Springers' 
 that there was nobody in sight. She felt that she was 
 acquiring a new attitude toward the Springers and 
 she had never liked them particularly. Springer's loud- 
 ness had always seemed, somehow, to signify so little; 
 to be in a false key a kind of merriment that would 
 bear watching. And Mrs. Springer had never contrib- 
 uted to the joy of life on the mountain. She was a 
 gaunt, sallow woman, whose days were filled with mur- 
 mured complaints and petty lamentations. Their son, 
 Hermann, was one of those colorless young men whom 
 no one seems to know intimately, perhaps because there 
 is so little for them to know. He was as German as his 
 parents, though he was born in America and Rosy had 
 suddenly discovered that she did not like that. 
 
 Still, she was sorry that Jacob Feld was not to be seen 
 pottering about his front yard, or in the stable-lot, when 
 she passed his place a hundred yards farther on. He 
 was quite a different sort of man from Springer and 
 this realization was disquieting in a way. For clearly 
 one could not say, "I do not like the Germans," and 
 leave this statement unqualified; for were there not 
 different kinds of Germans, just as there were different 
 kinds of Americans? 
 
 Jacob Feld was a kind man you could not have any 
 doubt about that; and a modest man, too. And there 
 was something genuine about him. It did you good to 
 look into his quietly beaming eyes and listen to his 
 rather plaintive yet resonant voice. Thinking of him 
 and his pleasant, neighborly ways, Rosy wished that 
 there had never been any war, and that it might be
 
 ROSY 61 
 
 over speedily. Such men as Jacob Feld couldn't help 
 what the German Government did nor could they 
 help loving the memory of their childhood, and their 
 kindred across the sea. She felt sorry for poor old 
 Feld; and she made a resolution to think of other 
 things than the war when she encountered him, and to 
 speak just as if nothing had happened. She smiled as 
 she recalled the figure of Mrs. Feld, who was so fleshy 
 it seemed a miracle that the seams of her waist were not 
 always ripping, especially when she kughed. And 
 the Feld girls and Charley Feld they were as good as 
 she was, she reflected, and not really different in any 
 way. They were Americans, certainly; and then Rosy 
 thought how unfortunate it must be for those families 
 whose sympathies were necessarily divided more or less. 
 She came to the conclusion that one's childhood de- 
 termines most things, and that it is unfair to judge 
 persons without first reflecting on what their childhood 
 has been. 
 
 . . . She did see Jacob Feld, after all. A little be- 
 yond his house she came to a depression where a great 
 wedge had been worn out of the mountainside. The 
 thin end of the wedge, to retain the metaphor, was the 
 location of a beautiful spring which flowed away 
 down the mountain, losing itself in the rocks. It was 
 called the bench spring; and it was here that visitors 
 and those who dwelt permanently on the bench often 
 stopped to drink. The spring was on Jacob Feld's 
 land, and he had improved it in many ways, erecting a 
 rustic shelter, and constructing a stone wall which 
 surrounded the bubbling water. He had also bricked 
 in a sort of court and placed in it hickory seats, which 
 he had made himself, where one could rest. And he 
 had trimmed the trees not too much, but so that they 
 should not look forlorn and neglected. There was a 
 wilderness of trees all about the spring, some of them
 
 62 ROSY 
 
 being quite patriarchal. To one of them, near the spring, 
 Feld had fixed a tiny box in the hope that the wrens 
 would come and build in it though they had never 
 done so as yet. 
 
 All this work ihad been done largely for the public 
 benefit to comfort men and women whom, in most 
 cases, he could never know; and he took a pride in it, 
 and went away when strangers came, so that they might 
 be alone if they wished to be. Indeed, old Jacob Feld, 
 working at his spring, was one of the pleasing pictures 
 that visitors might be expected to see and admire as 
 they passed along the bench on their way to the sum- 
 mit which they reached by a curving road farther 
 around the mountain. It is certain that the sight of 
 him had started many a pleasant revery in strangers' 
 minds touching the sources of comfort of this gentle- 
 appearing old man who, while others strove feverishly 
 in the direction of high, nebulous destinies, placidly 
 mended his spring and kept its waters fresh and sweet. 
 
 Rosy checked her horse and called to him pleasantly: 
 "Good morning, Mr. Feld!" 
 
 He straightened up and looked up to the road, a bit 
 startled. "Oh, it's you, Rosy!" he exclaimed. A kind 
 of introspective and wounded look faded from his face 
 as if a friendly hand had smoothed it out. He looked 
 at her, smiling. "Will you have a drink, Rosy?" he 
 asked. In secret he was vastly proud of his spring. 
 Without waiting for her reply he took a cup, which he 
 had skilfully fashioned from a can and which hung on a 
 peg driven into a tree, and dipped it into the spring. 
 He went trudging toward her, looking anxiously at the 
 cup to see that too much of the water did not spill 
 like a child, she thought. 
 
 "It's kind of you," said Rosy, waiting for him. "I 
 always get a drink from the spring when I'm afoot. 
 When I can't find the cup, I bend over and drink out of
 
 ROSY 63 
 
 the spring, and get my chin and nose wet. I love to 
 drink that way." She smiled and took the cup from his 
 hands, and bent forward so that she might drink with- 
 out wetting her dress. 
 
 "Yes, the cup is gone sometimes," said Feld. "The 
 boys like to hide it." He said this without rancor, as 
 if he were speaking of what the squirrels or the birds 
 did; and Rosy wondered how he could help feeling 
 angry with the boys, who often came and stole his cup 
 away. 
 
 She could see that he wished to talk to her, though 
 it did not seem that he had anything important to say. 
 "I've been hoping the wrens would come and build in 
 the house I made them," he said, pointing. "But now 
 another spring has gone and they haven't come yet." 
 
 When Rosy did not reply to this beyond a murmur, 
 he said, after an interval of silence: "You'll keep a 
 sharp eye on the road going down? You know the 
 storm left it bad in places blowing the trees down, 
 you remember." 
 
 She replied yes, she would be careful. But she was 
 convinced that there were few obstacles anywhere 
 which her horse would have been unable to surmount. 
 It was her belief that the faithful, stubborn creature 
 could do anything short of climbing a tree. 
 
 Then another silence fell, but she did not move on. 
 Silences are an important part in the communications 
 of isolated persons. She had an idea, in fact, that he 
 was trying to approach some difficult topic, and she 
 wished to give him time to do this in his own way. 
 
 He came to it now. "I guess nobody ever heard a 
 word of Zeb Nanny," he remarked. 
 
 Rosy manipulated one of the reins across the horse's 
 flank so that a great green fly went buzzing angrily 
 away in a circle. "None of the neighbors has men- 
 tioned him to me," she said.
 
 64 ROSY 
 
 He regarded her dubiously. "Did you know his 
 horse came up the mountain the night of the storm?" 
 he asked. He went on: "It did. It was found farther 
 around the bench the next morning, in the stable where 
 it was bred. He might have got lost in the dark, you 
 know, and got killed." 
 
 "Do you think so?" she asked. She looked carefully 
 to see if the green fly had come back. 
 
 He continued: "Zeb ... he wouldn't be likely to 
 run away from anything. You don't think he would, 
 do you? He gave them his word. He meant to go 
 back, I bet you ! On such a night that is, if he rode 
 up the mountain something might have happened to 
 him." He lowered his voice and added: "I've looked 
 about a good bit down on the slopes. I thought I 
 might find him. But there's so many places among 
 the rocks where you can't get." He sighed and added 
 more cheerfully: "Maybe nothing happened to him." 
 
 "That's what Seth Hammond thinks," said Rosy. 
 She said nothing as to her own belief; but as she handed 
 the cup back to the old man, she surprised him con- 
 siderably by saying: "I think you're a good man, Mr. 
 Feld." Her eyes were wonderful just at that moment. 
 
 "Some more?" he asked, holding the cup up. 
 
 She shook her head. But as she lifted the reins, so 
 that the horse would start again, she glanced after the 
 retreating figure with a new interest, a new intentness. 
 He was going back to the spring again, walking with 
 care over the uneven rocks. 
 
 She did not know that Feld looked after her pres- 
 ently, murmuring: "Poor child !" Nor did Feld realize 
 how compassionately Rosy had felt in her heart toward 
 him. But no doubt both of them felt uplifted because 
 of that encounter at the spring.
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 
 ROSY was on her way to visit Zeb Nanny's father to 
 convey to him certain information which had been set 
 forth in Zeb's letter to her. 
 
 She had not told Jabob Feld of her intention; she 
 meant to tell no one, if she should encounter any one 
 she knew on the way. On the contrary, she hoped no 
 one would see her and that she might complete her 
 mission without attracting attention. 
 
 She could very easily believe that Robert Nanny 
 might be suffering a new kind and degree of humiliation 
 just now. He was the sort of man whose chief asset 
 was the knowledge that men trusted him. That was 
 the heritage he would have wished to leave his son. It 
 was easy to imagine how he had felt when the warden 
 of the penitentiary had permitted his son to go free 
 for a limited time, trusting in his word. He would not 
 attribute this action to a kind of capriciousness or a 
 love of publicity. He would feel sure that the warden 
 had recognized in Zeb a man incapable of the meanness 
 of lying or bad faith. And now to have to reflect that 
 Zeb had not gone back, after all ! She could imagine 
 how he must have spent long hours wondering what had 
 induced his son to betray a trust, and worrying because 
 he could not even guess what had become of him. 
 
 She felt sure that Zeb would not have written to his 
 father. He would know that letters received by Robert 
 Nanny just now would be viewed with suspicion that 
 they might even be intercepted and opened. 
 
 6s
 
 66 ROSY 
 
 She believed that she could justify Zeb's conduct to 
 his father to a large extent, at least. She could submit 
 the proof that Zeb had meant to go back that he had 
 had no thought of doing anything else. She even hoped 
 that she might suggest a certain logic or plausibility in 
 the decision at which he had arrived; that, since he was 
 prevented from returning at the time named in his 
 promise, it was not a dishonorable thing to refuse to 
 return at all, as long as the performance of what seemed 
 a higher duty lay within his reach. And there were 
 other things which she meant to suggest to Zeb's father. 
 
 . . . She came to where the bench road turned al- 
 most at right angles and began the descent of the moun- 
 tain; and she tightened the reins, though she knew the 
 horse would lean back and thrust his legs out warily, 
 now that the steep incline was reached. How many 
 hundreds of tunes the faithful creature had traversed 
 that course, in fair weather and foul ! 
 
 She drifted into a mood of sombre revery for half an 
 hour or more, while the wheels of her carriage ground 
 their way monotonously over the stones. She scarcely 
 saw familiar landmarks as she passed them. It seemed 
 to her that life, which had always been without very 
 great responsibilities for her, even after the death of 
 her parents, had completely changed, and that she must 
 never expect to be care-free and light-hearted again. 
 Yet she felt a new interest in existence, too; and she 
 had an idea that when she became accustomed to the 
 new state of affairs she might get more out of life than 
 she had ever done before. A challenge had been flung 
 at her, and she had taken it up without thinking and 
 now she knew that life had given her a battle to fight. 
 
 She was aroused from her revery by a movement in 
 the road before her. She saw first as in a dream 
 an object far down the slope; an object which seemed
 
 ROSY 67 
 
 to be approaching her. She aroused herself and peered 
 across the intervening space, obscured by turnings and 
 foliage. And presently she knew that there was a 
 carriage moving slowly up the mountain. 
 
 A little later she recognized with a certain appre- 
 hension which she could not have defined very clearly 
 the occupant of the carriage. There was no mistak- 
 ing the figure of Seth Hammond, the sheriff. No one 
 else about Pisgah suggested that aspect as of a sort of 
 benevolent pirate, that hint of lawless escapades tem- 
 pered by an enveloping charity. 
 
 They had been "Seth" and "Rosy" to each other 
 ever since Rosy could remember true friends. Yet she 
 now found herself swallowing with difficulty and glanc- 
 ing uneasily from left to right, as if she would have wel- 
 comed a by-road and a means of escape. For above and 
 beyond all considerations of friendship, Hammond was 
 a man who believed in doing his duty. Yet she ad- 
 dressed herself angrily in these words: "What's the 
 matter with you, anyway?" And she began to assume 
 a lightly careless air, though Hammond was still far 
 away from her. 
 
 It occurred to her that the sheriff must have changed 
 his mind, and that he was searching Moab for Zeb 
 Nanny, after all. 
 
 She came presently to a point where the road broad- 
 ened; a point at which, by immemorial custom, drivers 
 paused whenever other travellers were about to be en- 
 countered, so that the passing might be effected with- 
 out embarrassment. But though she waited patiently, 
 Hammond did not appear around the shoulder of the 
 mountain just ahead. Moreover, she realized that 
 though she ought to be able to hear the sound of his 
 carriage-wheels, the silence of the windless Sunday 
 morning was unbroken.
 
 68 ROSY 
 
 She continued to wait, her impatience and uneasi- 
 ness growing steadily; and at length she concluded that 
 Hammond had seen her and that he, like herself, had 
 stopped with the thought that the passing should be 
 effected a little farther down the mountain, where an- 
 other broad stretch of road occurred. 
 
 She moved forward hastily, lest Hammond, too, might 
 change his mind about waiting. And rounding the 
 curve before her, she came upon his horse and carriage 
 drawn up at the side of the road. But Hammond was 
 nowhere to be seen. The horse was nibbling at an over- 
 hanging bough and the carriage was empty. , 
 
 She located him presently. He had left the road and 
 was climbing warily over the rocks, down the mountain 
 slope. He was making a search his actions were un- 
 mistakable. And Rosy drove on, almost fearful of 
 looking down toward the sheriff, lest he glance up and 
 see her and read certain thoughts which were in her 
 mind. She felt great relief when she was well on her 
 way beyond his range of vision, now. She thought it 
 quite likely that she should hear him calling after her. 
 But again she mused angrily: "What's the matter with 
 you, Rosy Woodridge?" And then, little by little, she 
 forgot about Hammond. Her thoughts began to be 
 centred wholly upon the mission upon which she was 
 going. 
 
 A little later her horse began to trot easily, with re- 
 laxed muscles, and she thought: "So soon?" She knew 
 that the horse never trotted in this way until he reached 
 the last descent, where the way merged itself into the 
 valley road and there was no longer any need of 
 holding back. There were homesteads on either side 
 of her now; primitive dwellings, with a cow or two 
 and a horse and poultry in the yards, and wells, and 
 always a dog which dashed at the fence barking and
 
 ROSY 69 
 
 then returned triumphantly to its place on the front 
 porch. 
 
 She had to exert her authority over the horse a little 
 farther on. The aged creature was bent upon going on 
 into Pisgah, which was now only a mile or so away. 
 But it was not her intention to go to Pisgah, and she 
 turned off upon a branch road which bore away through 
 the valley, toward the river. 
 
 She was entering a new world now. The river-bot- 
 toms were ahead of her; the mountain towered above 
 her, cloud-crested and with faint, opaline vapors up 
 in the hollows. The temperature had changed, too. It 
 was a good deal warmer and close and oppressive. The 
 cultivated tracts were becoming larger. Around the 
 shoulder of the mountain, up the river, she caught dis- 
 tant vistas of really immense plantations where hun- 
 dreds and even thousands of bales of cotton were pro- 
 duced every year. 
 
 Greatly to her relief, she encountered no one; though 
 over toward the river, half a mile away, she caught 
 glimpses of vehicles passing, their tops showing over 
 fences and hedges. She knew that certain families of 
 the bottoms were on their way to attend church in 
 Pisgah. And suddenly it seemed strange to her that 
 people should continue to go to church and sing the 
 same old songs in raucous voices and feel meanly self- 
 conscious, just as if the old world were not coming to 
 an end and a new world quivering to be born. 
 
 The branch road she had taken circled the mountain, 
 not very far from its base. It had been built by the 
 mountain folk who had occasional need of journeying 
 from various points at the base of the mountain, and 
 on its lesser slopes, into Pisgah. And less than half an 
 hour's farther drive brought her to the small farm of 
 Robert Nanny.
 
 70 ROSY 
 
 It lay to her right, between the branch road and the 
 river; but just at this point the region was uneven and 
 rather high, and Nanny had bought his tract for very 
 little, because the ground was thought not to be produc- 
 tive. Indeed, it was he who had made it so. But he 
 had done his work so well that there were now no richer 
 acres in the whole county. He had for nearest neighbor 
 old Tom Lott, a retired merchant who was not de- 
 pendent upon his land for a living, who dwelt on a 
 pine-crowned knoll in the shadow of the mountain, 
 with the placid river running in the distance in plain 
 view of his front veranda. And it was because Lott 
 had looked covetously upon Nanny's fertile land that 
 Rosy Woodridge now had occasion to visit Nanny's 
 house. 
 
 As she neared the gate she thought of the outrageous 
 wrong that had been done to Nanny, and she hoped 
 she should not see old Lott. It would be better, she 
 thought, for her not to be seen by any one while she 
 was on her secret mission. But, apart from considera- 
 tion of her safety and of prudence, she knew that if 
 she should encounter Lott she should be tempted to 
 stop and call him an old thief and express her opinion 
 of him generally which might only make a bad matter 
 worse. 
 
 However, she did see him. By ill chance he was 
 emerging from his own gate as Rosy drew near to Nan- 
 ny's gate, and he stopped in the road and looked after 
 her; admiring her blooming beauty, perhaps, and chuck- 
 ling at the haughty carriage of her head. And he con- 
 tinued to look after her though with a changed ex- 
 pression when she turned in at Nanny's gate. He knew 
 her in what is called a general way; and perhaps he was 
 suspicious of all who called on Robert Nanny during these 
 days. Indeed, there were few who visited Zeb's father
 
 ROSY 71 
 
 or were visited by him. And as for Rosy Woodridge, 
 Lott had never known of her calling at the Nannys' 
 before. 
 
 She was looking at the house and around toward the 
 back yard in search of Nanny as she climbed from her 
 buggy. The horse needed no tying. She advanced 
 uncertainly, trying to forget that she had encountered 
 Tom Lott. She did not know how Robert Nanny would 
 receive her just at first. She had heard it said that he 
 was a rather strange man and she could not remember 
 ever having spoken to him. Almost certainly he would 
 not know her not at least until she had explained that 
 she was Sam Woodridge's daughter. And the serious- 
 ness of her mission dismayed her for a moment. 
 
 He was nowhere about, seemingly. The quietude of 
 a perfect Sunday morning was about the place. Not 
 even a dog appeared to repel or welcome her. She 
 followed a neatly laid out path around the house to a 
 well in the side yard. She could see every part of the 
 barnyard now. But the premises seemed entirely de- 
 serted. 
 
 And then she caught sight of him, standing near a 
 fence, motionless, his head a little bowed. She thought 
 he might be looking at the hens over on the other side 
 of the fence, dusting in the shade of a pear-tree. But 
 as she drew nearer to him she knew that he was not 
 looking at anything at all. 
 
 She paused in uncertainty and then she seemed to 
 come to a decision. 
 
 "Mr. Nanny!" she called. 
 
 Her heart smote her as he turned about; he looked so 
 sadly troubled, and her voice had startled him. She 
 thought how like his son he was like, and yet unlike. 
 He had the same defiant way of standing now that 
 he had been aroused and the same splendid strength.
 
 72 ROSY 
 
 Yet subduing influences had been at work during long 
 years, and he seemed more placid than his son, more 
 deliberate. His eyes were very like Zeb's save that 
 the fire in them had burned to a steady glow and did 
 not leap and dance any longer. 
 
 He seemed to be trying to place her as he slowly ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 "I don't think you know me, Mr. Nanny," she said, 
 smiling. "Rosy Woodridge? I'm a friend of of 
 Zeb's." She extended her hand quickly. She did not 
 wish to leave an instant of time during which he might 
 suppose that she was not proud of her friendship for Zeb. 
 
 "Of Zeb's? Yes, of course," he said. His eyes 
 smiled faintly, and she found herself wondering if Zeb 
 would be as good-looking as his father when he was 
 as old. 
 
 "Will you come in?" he asked, moving toward the 
 house. He added something apologetic about the un- 
 readiness of his house for the reception of a young lady. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I want to go into the house. I've 
 something important to say to you." 
 
 He looked into her eyes again as he stood aside for 
 her to enter the door. Perhaps he thought that no one 
 could wish to speak to him privately unless with the 
 intention of referring to Zeb's conduct. And she mar- 
 velled that the expression of dull pain should have re- 
 turned to his face so quickly as if the pleasure on it a 
 moment ago had been a kind of mask which he could 
 put on at will. She wondered if all persons who had 
 reached the age of Zeb's father could put on masks in 
 that way. 
 
 "I want to be sure we're quite alone," she added, 
 looking about her alertly as they crossed the threshold. 
 "It wouldn't do for any one to hear what I have to 
 say."
 
 ROSY 73 
 
 "There's nobody about," he assured her, but she 
 was glad that he took the precaution of closing the 
 door through which they had entered. 
 
 They emerged from the house half an hour later 
 coming out by the front way. They seemed to have 
 become quite intimate during their brief visit together. 
 Nanny, especially, had undergone a remarkable change. 
 He held his head high and talked happily almost gayly. 
 Years seemed to have slipped from him. He helped her 
 into the carriage and examined the harness carefully 
 to be sure that every part was in its right place. Even 
 a slight mishap during the long mountain drive might 
 prove to be a serious matter. And then, although he 
 had shaken hands with her upon emerging from the 
 house, he held out his hand again. 
 
 "And you'll not go back on him?" he asked, look- 
 ing at her with beaming eyes. 
 
 "I'll not," declared Rosy. She straightened the reins 
 and looked to be sure that she had room to turn around. 
 She looked back over her shoulder as she drove away. 
 "I'll not!" she repeated emphatically. She felt that 
 she had done a very good day's work. And then she 
 looked up at the sun to determine how long it was to 
 noon. She felt that she ought not to be absent from 
 home any longer than was necessary. 
 
 She would not look in the direction of Lott's house as 
 she drove away; and in any case she would not have 
 been able to see old Lott, who had gone back into his 
 house and who stood carefully concealed behind a cur- 
 tain, staring intently after her and then at the retreat- 
 ing figure of Robert Nanny.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SHE drove in shadow all the way up the mountain 
 and to her very door. Always the summit of the moun- 
 tain rose between her and the sun. Yet it was still 
 early in the afternoon when she drove into the barn- 
 yard adjoining her cabin. She removed the harness 
 from the horse and watched the unhurried creature 
 move with a kind of automatic placidity toward the 
 water-trough and then turn and look at her blankly 
 as if it were saying: "There's none here !" She charged 
 herself with the duty of bringing water for the horse 
 soon, and then turned toward the house. 
 
 A subtle change occurred in her as she drew near the 
 front door. Her fingers were not entirely steady as she 
 searched for the key which she had put in her pocket. 
 She listened with an air of suspense while she adjusted 
 the key in the lock. The silence beyond that locked 
 door seemed to her a little surprising, perhaps dismay- 
 ing. She could not hear a sound. 
 
 The front room was empty when she entered it. She 
 closed the door behind her and stood still for an in- 
 stant. She was wondering: "Is he up in the attic, or 
 where is he?" And then she heard him coming in 
 from the small lean-to which had been built back of the 
 main room of the cabin, and which was used for a com- 
 bination kitchen and dining-room. 
 
 Minturn appeared in the doorway, looking at her 
 rather resentfully. "Where in the world have you 
 been, Rosy?" he demanded. 
 
 She tried to smile though it was not easy to smile 
 into his petulant eyes. "I went for a drive," she said. 
 
 74
 
 ROSY 75 
 
 "You know I must go out once in a while. I met a 
 number of people: Mr. Feld and " She would have 
 mentioned Seth Hammond, but instinct warned her 
 not to refer to the sheriff. "And others," she con- 
 cluded. "It's very pleasant out." 
 
 "It's not at all pleasant in" he retorted, "waiting 
 and ^worrying." 
 
 She replied, trying to speak quite gently: "You 
 mustn't worry too much, you know." 
 
 She was putting her hat away; and when she turned 
 to see why he did not reply, he was smiling rather oddly, 
 she thought. "It's easy to give advice of that kind," 
 he said. "Especially for you, when you've got noth- 
 ing to do but drive about all day." 
 
 She looked into vacancy for a moment; her mind was 
 in a condition of suspense. Her first impulse had been 
 to make an angry reply. He seemed to have forgotten 
 that she had cause to worry, too that she was risking 
 a good deal, and that if the truth were known it would 
 place her in a very bad light. But she yielded to the 
 woman's instinct to be gentle with the man who was 
 dependent upon her. "You'll not have to worry," she 
 said. "We'll have to think of ways . . . we'll have 
 to get out of the house sometimes you as well as I. 
 There's no telling how long you'll want to be here, you 
 know." She seemed to ponder deeply; and little by 
 little the furrows forsook her face and her eyes beamed 
 brightly. She had thought of something quite wonder- 
 ful they might do that very evening. But she did not 
 speak to him just then of what was in her mind. She 
 would keep it as a surprise. "We must have something 
 to eat now," she said. "Are you very hungry?" She 
 moved energetically toward the lean-to, looking back 
 over her shoulder and smiling. 
 
 He conquered the inclination to be moody. He fol-
 
 76 R;OSY 
 
 lowed her into the kitchen. "You know I'm to help," 
 he said. 
 
 That was ever so much better. "Yes, you may," she 
 said. "I'm going to make a turnover out of the dried 
 peaches that were left from supper. Do you like turn- 
 overs?" 
 
 She went to the cupboard, with its front of per- 
 forated tin, and brought the dish of stewed peaches, 
 placing it on the work-table. She laughed joyously. 
 "I almost forgot to put on my apron," she said. She 
 took an apron of great amplitude from the wall and 
 fastened it about her, looking at him in that luminous 
 "way which characterizes all young women when they 
 are concerned with any part of their wardrobe and 
 there is a man about. While she tied the strings behind 
 her she said: "The chef must always be in uniform. 
 The assistant should be, too only you haven't one that 
 is suitable." She moved toward the cupboard again, 
 smiling at him over her shoulder. "Shall I make you 
 some aprons?" she asked. She thought she had a very 
 high opinion of a man who fitted easily into the scheme 
 of making turnovers and pottering about in a kitchen. 
 She really did not know herself very well as yet. She 
 t / got an earthen jar from the cupboard, and the flour- 
 sifter. "Let me see," she reflected; "I think your part 
 just now will be to make a fire." 
 
 He had seemed disposed to watch her, to follow her 
 every movement as if it were a word or a line in a 
 poem, perhaps the key to the meaning of the whole. 
 But now he made a great show of interest in the stove. 
 The stove had already become one of his sources of 
 annoyance, because he shrank from seeing Rosy go out 
 to chop wood for it, despite her assurances that she did 
 not mind it at all. Indeed, even in her father's day 
 she had chopped wood, even felling the trees and trim-
 
 ROSY 77 
 
 ming them and cutting the trunk into lengths for 
 splitting. She had the handiness of a boy. But to him 
 the mere fact that she could do it so skilfully was the 
 most deplorable circumstance of all. 
 
 In an incredibly short time she was asking him if he 
 had got the oven hot, and was coming toward him with 
 the turnover in her hands. There were little beads of 
 sweat on her forehead and nose. She put finishing 
 touches on the fire he had made, as if he had not done 
 it quite right; and then she cleared the table of her 
 work materials and spread a cloth and laid the places 
 with plates and knives and forks. 
 
 He watched her with unqualified fondness now. He 
 picked up one of the steel forks with its handle of wood. 
 "Some day, Rosy," he said, "we're going to have better 
 things than these you and I." 
 
 She did not seem to be deeply impressed by this 
 by the words or by what they implied. It would have 
 seemed that they had spent a good deal of time before 
 now planning their future and reaching mutual under- 
 standings. 
 
 "I've never thought I needed anything better," she 
 said simply. "Maybe because I've never known any- 
 thing better." 
 
 He put the fork back on the table. "I'm not criticis- 
 ing anything," he said. "But there's no harm in re- 
 membering that I mean you shall have things better 
 and easier when I ... when the time comes that I 
 needn't hide any more." 
 
 She did not like to speak of his being in hiding. She 
 would have preferred not to say anything at all about 
 that phase of their situation. She changed the sub- 
 ject. "There are the drumsticks and the thigh of the 
 chicken left over from last night. I could warm them 
 up for you."
 
 78 ROSY 
 
 "No, don't," he said. "We might eat them to-night. 
 I'm not very hungry now, really. The turnover will be 
 a feast." 
 
 They drew their chairs up to the table, and Rosy cut 
 the turnover in two, sliding half of it onto his plate. 
 She poured him a glass of milk and filled her own 
 glass. 
 
 She drank from her own glass of milk and then ate 
 the turnover, handling the fork quite as if it had been 
 of the finest silver and most delicate workmanship. 
 She sighed with contentment when she had eaten her 
 part of the turnover. "It's wonderful how little it 
 takes to make you happy, isn't it?" she remarked. 
 
 Perhaps she had not noticed that he had been trifling 
 with his turnover, as if eating were a mere formality. 
 He looked at her with the ghost of a smile now. "Is 
 it? "he asked. 
 
 She hung up her apron almost excitedly. She had 
 cleared away the dinner things. "Now ! " she exclaimed. 
 "Now for the adventure!" 
 
 He regarded her ironically. He was thinking that 
 she must be even a simpler creature than she seemed 
 she could be joyous so easily. It did not occur to him 
 that she was affecting a mood which she did not wholly 
 feel, simply because he was her guest and she should 
 have thought it bad manners to permit him to be un- 
 happy. 
 
 He followed her to the back door, and there she bade 
 him remain. She slipped into the yard warily and 
 looked up and down the remote bits of road which were 
 visible from where she stood. She had assumed a 
 playfully mysterious air, as if it were a game they were 
 playing and not a serious matter which engaged them. 
 
 "It's all right," she said, in a voice scarcely above a
 
 ROSY 79 
 
 whisper. "You are to follow me. But you must hurry ! 
 It won't do for us to be seen." 
 
 He seemed reluctant to emerge from the hut; but she 
 was really in earnest now. She was slipping along a 
 path which ran straight from her back door and which 
 seemed to end in empty space. He followed her stealth- 
 ily and with increasing speed. 
 
 Presently she waited until he overtook her. "We're 
 all right now," she declared. She stood looking back 
 over the way they had come. The path had descended, 
 and only the top of the hut was visible. She led him 
 to a level shelf covered with mosses and sparse grass, a 
 spot the nature of which he did not at all take in at first. 
 He did not instantly comprehend when she said, with 
 an air of triumph: "Isn't it fine?" 
 
 And then he drew a swift breath. They seemed to be 
 hanging in space. The nearest visible objects before 
 him were tree- tops, thousands of feet below him; yet 
 these seemed near and distinct when compared with the 
 one dominating object in the scene: the river, lying 
 between its broad sand-bars and its clumps of willow 
 and cottonwood, alternating from side to side along a 
 length of a score of miles. It all constituted a wonder- 
 ful panorama; and they stood, like figures in a Dore 
 illustration, looking down upon it. A government 
 steamer was making its way down the river: tiny, al- 
 most motionless, as if it were some sort of aquatic bird 
 at rest. 
 
 That Rosy, had spent much time upon this dizzy 
 platform in days past was evident. She seemed to 
 regard it as a sort of playhouse. She had piled flat 
 rocks for seats. She became a delightful hostess, seek- 
 ing to make her guest perfectly at home. She stood 
 for a moment so near the verge, and seemed so little 
 conscious of her location, that he put forth a hand and
 
 8o ROSY 
 
 drew her back almost roughly. "Don't stand there!" 
 he exclaimed. It might have been supposed that he 
 was angry. 
 
 She seemed amazed. "There's no danger," she de- 
 clared. She added, as if in partial justification of his 
 action: "Of course you have to keep your eyes open." 
 
 She sat down on one of the rough stone seats and 
 leaned against a stunted pine-tree behind her. She in- 
 dicated that he was to follow her example; and after 
 he had done so a silence fell between them a silence 
 which made the great void before them vocal in some 
 indefinable way, and which made the soughing of the 
 pine-trees near by seem very loud. 
 
 He regarded her intently while she looked away into 
 space, dreamily, perhaps a little sadly, and at length he 
 said: "You're a strange girl, Rosy to care for a place 
 like this. I suppose you've come here sometimes 
 alone?" 
 
 She nodded without looking at him. 
 
 "And you haven't been afraid the whole thing might 
 tumble with you?" 
 
 "It's been here thousands of years without tumbling. 
 Why should it do it now? It'll wait another thousand 
 years before it turns loose, and then we shan't care." 
 
 From where he sat he could no longer see the tree- 
 tops, but only the river and the valleys beyond a 
 shimmering vista across vast horizontal spaces. The 
 feeling of uneasiness for her passed from him; par- 
 ticularly as she no longer seemed disposed to move 
 about as if she had wings to save her if she lost her 
 balance. 
 
 "You must get into the habit of coming here by 
 yourself, when you want to be alone," she said. "You 
 can bring your book and read. It seems terrible to be 
 in the house always. Don't you think so ? Especially
 
 ROSY 81 
 
 when you're by yourself. And you know I'll have to be 
 gone sometimes. I'll have to go on living just as I've 
 always done so people won't begin to talk. It wouldn't 
 do for us to let them become suspicious, you know." 
 
 He clasped his hands about his knees and his eyes 
 were lowered; he seemed dissatisfied. "I think we'll 
 find a way out some time," he said. "You've nothing 
 here worth staying for, Rosy. My idea is that some 
 day we can go away a great distance, you know 
 where neither of us will be known. So that we can live 
 like human beings, and not like squirrels. Of course 
 I'm glad to have a place to hide now any place. But 
 I don't expect to stay here long." 
 
 She seemed to ponder this darkly, and he had the 
 conviction that she was weighing him unfavorably. In 
 fact, she was just beginning to realize more clearly 
 than at any other time that she must prevail upon Nat 
 to remain with her, a secret guest, for a long time so 
 that Zeb might be safe. It wouldn't do for Nat to be 
 discovered now. 
 
 She assumed a sprightly manner. "You can't think 
 what hours I've spent here and what dreams I've had," 
 she said. "I've called it my tower-room. There's an- 
 other room though, of course, you don't know about 
 that. Nobody does. A wonderful room right under- 
 neath us." 
 
 "Another room?" he repeated incredulously. 
 
 "It's a secret; all mine, since father died. He tried 
 to blast a well once father did in the side yard. He 
 thought it was too far bringing water from Feld's 
 spring. And he bored and blasted, and bored and 
 blasted the longest time. And what do you think 
 happened?" 
 
 He was regarding her appraisingly. He sensed some- 
 thing of duplicity in her sprightly mood.
 
 82 ROSY 
 
 She brought out the climax to her story as if it were 
 deliciously humorous: "He came to a cave I" Her 
 beaming eyes sought his. "A great cave! It's right 
 under us. When he'd blasted down to a certain depth 
 he came to a hollow place. He went down into it. It 
 was lighted. Wouldn't that seem strange, don't you 
 think? He saw right away where the light came from. 
 The cave he was in had a great opening in the side of 
 the mountain. He could see the sky and the river off 
 yonder, just as we can see them from here. He stood 
 looking out at the plains and the river through the 
 mouth of the cave as if he were seeing a bright pic- 
 ture in a dark frame." 
 
 Her face glowed with the remembrance of that secret 
 cave, in which no one had ever stood save her father 
 and herself. "He never told anybody about that cave 
 no one but me. He thought they'd laugh at him for 
 taking all that trouble, drilling and blasting, and never 
 getting anything for it. But I climbed down the edges 
 of the well often into the secret cave. It isn't deep 
 the well isn't. When you stand up in it your head is 
 even with the ground. The opening into the cave is 
 at the side. You take a step down; then you're in the 
 cave. And you can see that great open space where 
 the sky is as if a curtain had been lifted. There's a 
 ledge at the outer side, a ledge just like this one we're 
 on. Only the one down there has a kind of roof over it, 
 so that you wouldn't get wet if it rained, and the sun 
 wouldn't strike you. It's warm even in winter, down 
 there in the secret cave. It's still and mysterious as 
 if you'd stepped off the earth into some other world. 
 You've no idea how strange you can feel when you're 
 there alone. It makes me laugh to think of it; but I 
 remember . . . once when I was there alone it came 
 to me to say out loud: 'I am Eve. Where are you.
 
 ROSY 83 
 
 Adam?' It's too funny! Sometimes by myself there 
 I tried to picture the sort of Adam I'd like, if an Adam 
 should come. You know what I mean? Having him 
 dark, and then light; or tall and graceful, or shorter and 
 very strong. Sometimes he would be as polite as any- 
 thing; and then again he would speak with a voice like 
 thunder, and I'd lie down before him and say: 'Whip 
 me, Adam.' But I never could decide what kind of one 
 I liked best." 
 
 She meditated in silence for a time, while he tried to 
 comprehend her. And presently she went on: "I 
 wouldn't tell anybody all that I used to think about or 
 do down in that cave. It used to end in my running, 
 almost of a-tremble, and climbing up in the well. I 
 don't know what I was afraid of. Maybe that the 
 wrong Adam would catch me." 
 
 He looked at her wonderingly. He was still more 
 greatly perplexed when she asked: "Did you ever think 
 how many wrong Adams there are? And wrong Eves, 
 too, I reckon." 
 
 A thought came to him. "I suppose there was a 
 serpent there?" he asked. 
 
 She shook her head dreamily. "Never a serpent; 
 sometimes birds. One would fly in and chirp a little 
 sound in a great stillness and then fly away." Her 
 eyes became dreamy. They sought out the steamer 
 away over on the river. It had moved, though it 
 seemed impossible to detect its movement. It had 
 slipped into a region of shadows in a quiet bend, where 
 feathery willows were duplicated in the water. She 
 was leaning forward a little wistfully; she seemed a 
 pathetic figure for the moment. 
 
 Something prompted him to say: "You know, Rosy, 
 I've never asked you and you've never promised me in 
 so many words to be my wife. We've just had a kind
 
 84 ROSY 
 
 of understanding since I came ... but it is under- 
 stood, isn't it?" 
 
 She turned a startled almost a distressed glance 
 upon him. 
 
 "Of course it is," he added. "The way you've taken 
 me in and befriended me and the way I've always 
 admired you, besides ..." 
 
 She waited for him to go on, and when he did not do 
 so she turned her glance away. "You mean," she asked 
 in an even tone, "I've been a help to you, and you'd 
 want to show that you are grateful . . .?" 
 
 "Of course I would, Rosy!" 
 
 She did not break the silence which followed. She 
 was conscious of a feeling of shame yet she did not 
 forget that her situation was a very difficult one. 
 
 It occurred to him that possibly he had offended 
 her, and her stillness, which wrapped her in a kind of 
 forlornness, touched his heart, too. He moved over 
 toward her impetuously and would have put his arm 
 about her. 
 
 She sprang to her feet and backed away from him. 
 "Don't do that, Nat," she implored him. She con- 
 tinued to step backward slowly, and she was moving 
 in the direction of bottomless space. 
 
 He perceived what seemed to him her peril. A 
 startling transformation occurred in him. His muscles 
 became rigid, his face quite colorless. 
 
 "Rosy for God's sake ! " he whispered. 
 
 She perceived what it was that had alarmed him. 
 She looked over her shoulder almost carelessly. "There's 
 no danger!" she assured him. "I'm nowhere near the 
 edge." 
 
 "Let's get away from here," he said shortly. 
 
 They went toward the house together. Neither 
 spoke, but Rosy was marvelling greatly. Did he love
 
 ROSY 85 
 
 her did he love her as much as that that he could 
 almost perish of fear when he believed she was in 
 danger? 
 
 Still, she did not forget to make a swift survey of the 
 road as they approached her back door to be sure that 
 Minturn should not be seen. And as they entered 
 the house, safe again from prying eyes, she found her- 
 self somewhat to her bewilderment, it must be con- 
 fessed thinking of something which had no relation to 
 Minturn. 
 
 She was thinking: "I wonder what it will be like in 
 France? I wonder if he will ever come back again?"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE Summit Hotel was an oasis of elegance and com- 
 fort set in its mountain fastnesses, like a feudal castle 
 surrounded by its keeps and clans. It represented a 
 manner of life wholly foreign to the people of the 
 mountains and the surrounding valleys and even of 
 Pisgah. It was in effect a portable urban unit which 
 
 I arrived in early summer and departed in the autumn, 
 bringing its own atmosphere with it and taking it 
 away. It was a place of genial manners and contacts 
 in the summer and a deserted place of silence and 
 bitter winds during the long winter months. 
 
 The hotel had its ballroom and its orchestra; its 
 brilliantly lighted dining-room, immense beyond all 
 mountain conceptions of such things; its broad ver- 
 andas overlooking vistas which ended only in those 
 hazy obscurities marking the limits of human vision. 
 And on the verandas men and women of quite elegant 
 dress spoke a language which was all but unknown to 
 the mountain folk, while their children played in cor- 
 ridors and on lawns and presented pictures of a child- 
 hood which no mountain man or woman had ever 
 known or would have had their children know. For 
 to the simple mountain mind the summer life of the 
 summit savored of wickedness: of laxity, of special 
 privileges, of a disproportionate and selfish share of 
 the joys of life. The hotel guests were thought to en- 
 gage quite frankly in light if not forbidden indulgences. 
 Was there not that ballroom, brilliantly lighted at night, 
 with its swarthy, gibbering fiddlers who played until 
 the early hours of morning? Moreover, there were 
 
 86
 
 ROSY 87 
 
 dark rumors of gambling behind closed doors, where 
 large fortunes were won and lost at a single sitting by 
 a certain class of guests: lawyers and steamboat cap- 
 tains and city merchants. 
 
 And yet the bench folk and those farther down the 
 mountain were wishful of being charitable toward the 
 men and women of the hotel: for the visitors were per- 
 sons of means, and prosperity reigned all about Moab 
 when the hotel was open and all its rooms were oc- 
 cupied. Moreover, it was generally believed that the 
 wealthy owners of private cottages up on the broad 
 plateau which crowned the mountain would have 
 sought comfort and diversion elsewhere during the 
 summer months, had it not been for the hospitality and 
 gayety of the big hotel. The people of the private cot- 
 tages, like those of the hotel, were pleasant birds of 
 passage. 
 
 Perhaps, too, there were certain of the native families 
 who knew that the hotel exerted an educational influence 
 in a way, in that it gave practical demonstrations in the 
 science of sanitation, and opened its doors on visitors' 
 nights, when really competent pianists and violinists 
 and singers from St. Louis and Chicago and else- 
 where gave recitals consisting of tuneless programmes: 
 music in which individuals of native sense could recog- 
 nize elegance of fabric, even if they found the patterns 
 obscure. 
 
 The Powells the judge and his wife from Little 
 Rock did not arrive at the hotel until the second week 
 in August. In theory the judge had retired from the 
 active practice of his profession years ago; but he had 
 never been able to resist the lure of a beautifully com- 
 plicated legal problem. And this summer he had back- 
 slidden to employ his wife's phrase and had become
 
 88 ROSY 
 
 involved in a case which had kept him in Little Rock 
 until the summer was half over. He had urged Mrs. 
 Powell to desert him and to seek the comfort of the 
 mountain; but this she had refused to do. She had 
 given him no reason for her decision; but she had seen 
 that the judge had ben aging rapidly during the past 
 year or two, and she professed to be fairly comfortable 
 at home. It was her conviction that she ought not to 
 leave him alone. 
 
 Their arrival at the hotel indeed, the arrival of Mrs. 
 Powell, who preceded the judge by seven or eight hours 
 was the signal for increased activities throughout 
 the hostelry and an anxious testing of every string on 
 the instrument, so to speak, to make sure that it was 
 in tune. You would have known immediately, if you 
 had not known already, that the Powells were persons 
 of importance. 
 
 There was something in Mrs. Powell's manner which 
 justified the theory that the old South was not merely 
 the lower part of the United States, but that in a 
 limited social sense, at least, it was a distinct unit in 
 the composition of the Western Hemisphere. Her dis- 
 tinctive quality was the feminine counterpart of that 
 quality which in men would be called chivalry. 
 
 She was at once a woman of kindness and of ele- 
 gance, of sense and of sentiment. In her own house 
 she had the manner of a somewhat naive yet definitely 
 intentioned and kindly queen; and at sixty- two she had 
 never ceased to treat her husband as if he were a kingly 
 ambassador sent to her from an adjoining kingdom. 
 She was wise in domestic lore: but she was wise in a 
 beautiful way. To her the storing of the pantry be- 
 came a sort of regal duty. She knew just what to do in 
 case of aches and pains; but this knowledge she employed 
 not as a gypsy with herbs and incantations, but as a
 
 ROSY 89 
 
 kind of benevolent siren, with scientific aids and a sort 
 of lovely ritual. She was as beautiful at sixty-two, in 
 a way, as she had been at twenty-six. She was in love 
 with lovely dresses, just as she had been when she was 
 a girl. She could become blissfully happy over rib- 
 bons; she could press them to her heart and sigh with 
 ecstasy. A black dress made her frown delicately, and 
 with a kind of tremulous perplexity. 
 
 Her own garments were of soft tints, unassertive in 
 themselves, but in the end distinguishing. Her hair 
 was white, but in texture it was of an undiminished vital- 
 ity. She was still slender, yet her movements were 
 not marred by that rigorousness which is characteristic 
 of many slight, elderly women. Her skin was smooth 
 and soft and a delicate flush still played in her cheeks. 
 Her eyes were of a soft brown. 
 
 She spoke slowly even in stressful moments soften- 
 ing the hard letters, as Southern women often do. Her 
 way of asking questions imparted to her manner a cer- 
 tain charming naivete: yet her questions were always 
 searchingly pertinent. She seemed to assume that 
 every man she met was a gentleman, and she spoke to 
 him with an effect of complete confidence and candor. 
 During moments when she sat in silence, with a cer- 
 tain pondering expression in her eyes, she might have 
 been thinking of reports she had heard that there are 
 evil persons in the world. You would never have in- 
 ferred from her manner or her words that she had ever 
 encountered any evil persons or that she really believed 
 in their existence. 
 
 Doubtless there were certain things in her mind 
 sometimes which she did not choose to discuss. Even 
 toward her husband, after more than forty years of 
 married life, she seemed singularly reticent at times. 
 She was equally punctilious in the discharge of her
 
 90 ROSY 
 
 social obligations and in the care of her husband's linen. 
 She loved flowers and grieved to have them cut unless 
 they were a little more than full blown. She always 
 had many flowers at home. She seemed to regard them 
 as a sort of delicate, lesser people. It was her idea that 
 the yardman should look after their bodies, but that 
 she should be the curator of their souls. She walked 
 among them without getting soiled, and came away 
 from them with her eyes harboring subdued hymns of 
 praise. 
 
 She was always industrious, but never hurried. She 
 read and reread George Meredith's books as a woman 
 of an earlier period might have, expended her leisure 
 in spinning even after she had spun sufficient fabric for 
 all her needs : as if it were a decent and becoming thing 
 to do. It was her belief that she kept up with the new 
 books, too; she had read Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird," and 
 j liked specially to turn again to the passages devoted to 
 the dog in that inimitable fantasy. She did not wish to 
 have a dog of her own another dog, she would have 
 said. There had been one years ago, a collie; and it had 
 died of old age with its head on her knee, looking at her 
 with mute questions which she could not answer. 
 
 . . . The same suite of rooms they had occupied in 
 former summers had been reserved for them; and when 
 Mrs. Powell arrived with her maid shortly before noon 
 she had proceeded at once by some sort of magic proc- 
 ess to soften the atmosphere of the rooms. She had had 
 her luncheon brought to her. She kept herself in se- 
 clusion during the afternoon. It was her belief that one 
 should make one's appearance, not ostentatiously, cer- 
 tainly, but with a certain quiet impressiveness; and it 
 is possible that she believed she had not arrived at the 
 hotel in a complete sense until the judge also had 
 arrived.
 
 ROSY 91 
 
 She had put aside her travelling costume for a gar- 
 ment which expressed the fact that she was taking her 
 ease becomingly; and during the afternoon, when the 
 maid was attracted by a concert by the string band 
 out under the trees, she sat by a window which faced 
 infinite spaces of sky a sky which rested its azure 
 arch upon a lovely, hazy valley, bisected by a river like 
 a shining silver thread. 
 
 She was not idle. She produced certain materials 
 and began to knit. 
 
 I have no idea why that word should bring to so 
 many minds a comic image. Do we all associate the 
 practice of knitting with unlovely spinsters and nasal 
 speech and ungenerous gossip? Is there something in- 
 herently bucolic about knitting-needles? Is knitting 
 fairly to be smiled at as a "Yankee trick"? Should we 
 be able to discern something finely picturesque in the 
 practice of knitting if it could be described in words of 
 the Romance languages, or of mediaeval ages ? Why is 
 it that the old Flemish and Dutch painters could show 
 us beautiful maidens at their spinning-wheels, while no 
 American artist would dare venture to present one of 
 our own girls with knitting-needles in her hands? 
 
 Mrs. Powell was not a comic figure as she sat by the 
 window with her knitting in her fine hands. She was 
 knitting for the American boys in the trenches in 
 France, and she was beautifully in earnest. 
 
 When it had first occurred to her that she might 
 help a little by knitting she had considered the matter 
 at length and had finally said to the judge: ". . . Mit- 
 tens. I shall knit mittens." 
 
 Whereat he had looked at her and smiled delightedly 
 not because she was ridiculous, but because she was 
 lovely. And he had said: "Well, now, honey . . . 
 mittens. ... If the boys have to pull a trigger once
 
 92 ROSY 
 
 in a while, as I used to have to do, they would have to 
 take their mittens off, and they might lose them. 
 Hadn't you better make it something else?" 
 
 She had considered this with rapidly dawning com- 
 prehension, and then she had asked: "Wrist-bands?" 
 She had pronounced the word dubiously. 
 
 He had pondered the matter. "Why not socks?" 
 he asked finally. 
 
 She seemed suddenly to have found a comfortable 
 footing in a precarious place. "Why, of course!" she 
 exclaimed, her problem happily solved. 
 
 So it was that she sat by her window knitting a sock. 
 
 She imparted to the homely task a spirit of wistful 
 rapture, a subdued and surrendering heroism like the 
 Francesco, of Madame Duse, bearing his armor and 
 his bolt and bow to the doomed Paola. She was put- 
 ting her hand forth across the seas to men on a field of 
 battle. You could see it. When she lifted her hand 
 on high to release a new length of yarn she was as beau- 
 tiful as a fabled prophetess, standing on a cloud and 
 sounding a silver trumpet, as you will see on the ceiling 
 of almost any theatre. 
 
 ... It was borne in upon her that the music out un- 
 der the trees had ended and that the sun was getting 
 low. She could no longer see the vibrations of the 
 heat out across the valley. There was a soft, eager 
 step in the hall, and then her maid entered the room. 
 
 The girl had softly bright eyes, and she had a way of 
 affecting a somewhat propitiatory manner as if her 
 mistress ought to be a petty tyrant, even if she were 
 not. She was treated precisely like a daughter by Mrs. 
 Powell. She went into the adjoining room to put her 
 hat away, and from the other room she called: "You'll 
 want to dress now?" And she said something about the 
 custom of the Summit Hotel of serving dinner at an
 
 ROSY 93 
 
 early hour. She re-entered the room presently, with 
 billows of shimmering fabric across her arm. It seemed 
 to have been decided earlier in the day what Mrs. 
 Powell was to wear that evening. 
 
 Mrs. Powell was at dinner when the judge arrived. 
 She had not waited for him because it was impossible 
 to know just at what hour he would come. The train 
 which stoppe'd at the distant junction was almost never 
 on time, and the service between Pisgah and the moun- 
 tain lacked precision in the matter of speed and schedule. 
 
 The head- waiter, with one of. those inspirations which 
 occasionally come to his kind, did not escort the judge 
 to Mrs. Powell's table when he made his belated ap- 
 pearance: to have done so would have been to imply 
 that Mrs. Powell could be obscure. The head-waiter 
 recognized the judge instantly and made known the 
 fact in his own fashion, and permitted himself to make 
 a slight indicative gesture with his hand toward Mrs. 
 Powell's end of the dining-room. And then he watched, 
 with a complete change of manner, to see that the 
 waiters performed their duty perfectly when the judge 
 reached his table. 
 
 The judge's quality was fairly indicated by the man- 
 ner in which he went into the presence of Mrs. Powell. 
 If an ill-bred fellow had married her if such a thing 
 can be conceived as possible it is certain that he would 
 never have ceased, while in her presence, to stand on 
 one foot, if he had lived with her for half a century. 
 He approached her with an almost boyish eagerness, 
 depositing beside her plate a small parcel containing 
 something she had meant to bring from the city, but 
 which she had forgotten. He brought a brisk atmos- 
 phere with him a sense of something completed and 
 made right.
 
 94 ROSY 
 
 He stood beside his chair just an instant before he 
 sat down, looking about him, without seeming wholly 
 to do so, to see who occupied the near-by tables. One 
 or two he greeted with decided informality, as for ex- 
 ample: "Hello, Doc!"; this to a good-looking pro- 
 fessional-appearing man seated with a party of ladies 
 over against the wall. But he added to the vocal 
 greeting a wholly punctilious little bow which was 
 meant to include the ladies. He looked at the "doc" 
 with a swift exchange of understanding, and then con- 
 veyed this glance on to another table where a solitary 
 diner was regarding him with a smile. His glance 
 seemed more significant than it really was, perhaps as 
 if between himself and those other individuals there 
 was a mutual memory of guilty practices; as if it harked 
 back to poker tables and late hours. He was a short 
 and heavy man, ruddy and grizzled, and with an eye 
 which left off being genial only to become sharp and 
 determined. And now that he had completed his pre- 
 liminary visual sortie of the entire dining-room, he 
 came wholly to rest, so to speak, at his own table. 
 
 Mrs. Powell was ready with a question. She had 
 placed the little parcel in her lap, so that she should 
 not forget it; and now she said, as she looked expect- 
 antly at the judge: "Did you see her?" 
 
 She considered the blank expression on his face for 
 an instant and then she went on with fine severity: 
 "Judge, do you know why we came to Moab this sum- 
 mer? What particular reason we had for coming this 
 year?" 
 
 He replied: "I came because you did; but you know 
 I never pretend to know why you do things." He 
 spoke slowly to the waiter and then he turned to her 
 expectantly and waited for her to explain what she 
 meant.
 
 ROSY 95 
 
 "I mean," she went on, "did you see Rosy Wood- 
 ridge on your way up the mountain ? " 
 
 He exclaimed "Oh!" as if her question explained 
 everything. "No, there wasn't a chance, it seemed. 
 The Jehu who brought me was in a hurry. I thought of 
 her, you may be sure; but there'll be plenty of time to 
 see her." 
 
 She considered this and finally shook her head. "I 
 think we'd better call the first thing in the morning," 
 she said. 
 
 "Well, we can do that," he replied. But something 
 in his tone, or perhaps in his face, prompted her to con- 
 tinue 
 
 "What are they the reservations? Why don't you 
 think we ought to see her the first thing, and have every- 
 thing settled ?" 
 
 He remained silent for a moment and then he replied : 
 "There's something about Rosy. . . . Do you remem- 
 ber the squirrels in the square in Memphis ? how they 
 used to vanish if you approached them, and how they 
 used to come to you if you just sat and waited ? " 
 
 Her reply was emphatically earnest and in dissent. 
 "But you know Rosy would never come to us if we 
 didn't ask her to, and have it definitely understood. 
 How should she know what our plans are, and how we 
 feel about her?" 
 
 He said musingly: "The poor child! . . ." 
 
 She broke in upon his revery. "There it is again. 
 Do you suppose she considers herself a child? There's 
 so little time left if we are to have her. It's quite prob- 
 able that she's beginning to think about sweethearts, 
 and such things. Suppose we were to hear that she 
 had got married? to some mountaineer who. . . . 
 What I'm thinking is that the dear child has reached 
 an age when she ought to have nice dresses, and go to
 
 96 ROSY 
 
 places, and see things. If we're ever to help her, now 
 is the time." 
 
 The judge was frowning with perplexity. "Well, 
 honey, yes . . ." he said; and after she had waited 
 for him to frame his thoughts he went on: "There are 
 other worlds than ours, you know. And when I think 
 of what she is now, and what so many of the young girls 
 are becoming everywhere . . . you know, she's just 
 perfect. Could finer dresses make her more beautiful ? " 
 
 "They could. I wish I had the chance to show 
 you!" " 
 
 "And as for seeing things; when she's our age, what 
 do you suppose she'll remember best of all? Won't 
 it be the way the sun comes up in her own valleys, and 
 how the grapes hang on the mountainside her own 
 mountain burnished by the frost? Is our world so 
 fine a place that you'd like to drive any one forth into 
 it, my dear?" 
 
 Her glance expressed gentle impatience, entire dis- 
 approval. "Do you remember how her mother lived?" 
 she asked. "And died?" 
 
 The picture came back to him; the funeral of Sam 
 Woodridge and his wife, which he had come up from 
 Little Rock to attend. He remembered how he had 
 gone back to Little Rock with only one thought that 
 he and his wife must do something for Rosy. The judge 
 and Sam Woodridge had been boys together and, though 
 life had assigned widely varied duties to each, their 
 friendship had never been broken. There had been 
 years during which the Powells had taken a cottage 
 down on the bench, close to the Woodridges; and the 
 judge had known Rosy when she was just learning to 
 walk, and had been her gravest and gayest and stanchest 
 friend through all the years of her life. He could not 
 bear to think of her as anything different from what
 
 ROSY 97 
 
 she was; and yet there was that picture of her mother, 
 old before her time, and impoverished, and overworked, 
 and dead at last as the result of a tragedy which need 
 never have been. The mountain was not beautiful in 
 all its aspects, nor was it always kind. 
 
 "I'm sure you're right, honey," he said at length. 
 "It was my idea that we'd see a good deal of her this 
 summer, and bring her closer to us a little at a time 
 and then carry her back to town with us. But I'm 
 willing to leave it all to you." 
 
 They went out to one of the verandas after dinner. 
 They were glad to get out of the dining-room, because 
 they wished still further to discuss Rosy's future, and 
 it had become difficult to talk inside, after the swarthy 
 musicians had made their appearance in a balcony over- 
 head and had begun to play popular melodies. 
 
 They had found seats on the veranda and had be- 
 come settled when the judge's eye, roving away in this 
 direction and that, settled upon a highly pleasing pic- 
 ture: a young girl in a pink-and-white lawn dress and 
 slippers, sitting beside a small wicker table sipping 
 lemonade through a straw. She had placed her straw 
 hat, ornamented with lace and flowers, on the bench 
 beside her, and the breezes were playing about her hair. 
 She was perfectly radiant: her eyes had drunk of joy 
 until they were full, and her cheeks were glowing. 
 
 The judge gave a second glance, and a third, and 
 then he got to his feet with an exclamation. His words 
 were 
 
 "Dad burn me if it ain't Rosy!"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IT was rather late in the day when Rosy had decided 
 that she ought to go up to the summit. She had busi- 
 ness on the summit, business of a simply pastoral kind. 
 There were eggs to be taken up to the hotel, and money 
 to be made by the sale of them. But she also craved 
 the pleasure which that journey always gave her. And 
 so she dressed with great care and set forth with an 
 eager heart. 
 
 She would not have admitted to any one that her 
 life was not filled with pleasures to the brim. Especially 
 in the summertime. In the summer she had only to 
 step to her door at almost any moment of the day to 
 see strangers passing along the bench road; and if she 
 sometimes looked pensively and perhaps a little en- 
 viously at girls or women of a higher plane of life than 
 that on which she dwelt, who shall say how often hi 
 turn she was regarded lingeringly by those whose chief 
 purpose in life it was to pursue pleasure, and who in 
 consequence found it a fleeting thing or who never 
 found it at all? 
 
 Of course she was happy especially now that she 
 had her great secret to guard. What woman ever found 
 life tedious when she had a really important secret to 
 keep or to give away? She was the most thoroughly 
 satisfied person at least to outward seeming along 
 the entire row of bench-houses. 
 
 She carried her basket of eggs with a skilful swing 
 of her arm to lessen the strain on her muscles. She 
 knew that she should adopt a somewhat different gait 
 when she reached the summit, where the visitors could 
 see her. But now it did not matter. 
 
 98
 
 ROSY 99 
 
 It occurred to her that both the Springer and the 
 Feld places seemed rather dreary as she passed them, 
 and she reflected upon the great change which had come 
 over nearly all the mountain households of late months. 
 The process of drafting men for the army had been going 
 on; and everywhere one came upon houses which were 
 unwontedly quiet because one of their sons and in 
 some instances two or three had gone away to the 
 cantonments. Charley Feld had gone: quietly, if per- 
 haps not reluctantly, leaving his parents and sisters 
 with a new spirit of uncommunication upon them. 
 
 And Rosy thought: "Why should they take it as if 
 it were a misfortune?" She recalled certain letters 
 which had come from boys who had gone forth as mem- 
 bers of the chosen army. These letters were widely 
 circulated and freely discussed, so that it was beginning 
 to be borne in upon the minds of those who received 
 them that the young fellows who had gone away were 
 not to be pitied, after all, but to be congratulated 
 at least, if you took their word for it. 
 
 . . . Rosy tried to forget the war. She was going 
 to the summit, and she wished to be perfectly happy. 
 
 There was a road to the summit, if you followed the 
 bench road half-way around the mountain; but the 
 bench folk in Rosy's neighborhood never went up by 
 that road. They had a nearer way; a steep footpath, 
 with lengths of wooden stairway, rising only a short 
 distance from Jacob Feld's house, and attaining the 
 summit by a short, if almost perpendicular, quarter of 
 a mile. 
 
 She walked slowly as she passed old Jacob Feld's 
 house in the hope that Jacob might be about. But he 
 was not. Even the Feld girls were unaware of her 
 passing. She saw them: one in the summer-kitchen, 
 standing off by itself, and the other in the gallery which
 
 ioo ROSY 
 
 bisected the house. One was baking bread she could 
 smell it. The other was paring apples, perhaps for 
 making apple-butter or pies. 
 
 She had an idea that if she had been slipping down 
 to the spring for water, clad in her every-day dress and 
 shoes, the girls would have been sure to see her. But 
 since they did not look up she decided not to call to 
 them. They would have been sure to suspect that she 
 wished to be seen because of her fine apparel. 
 
 However, a few steps farther on she came upon Mrs. 
 Feld; and she decided that upon the whole she would 
 rather have Mrs. Feld see her than her daughters, since 
 she had a more observant eye than either of them. 
 
 "You going up to the summit?" the old lady asked. 
 She stopped, resting her hands upon her huge hips. She 
 added, without waiting for a reply: "That lawn was 
 certainly a bargain I saw it at Goldman's. I'd have 
 bought dresses for the girls, but I felt I ought to econ- 
 omize npw. You know since Charley went his father 
 has had to hire a man to help with the store." (Al- 
 though Jacob Feld was regarded as a retired business 
 man, he still retained his interest in the small store in 
 Pisgah with which he had been associated for thirty 
 years.) 
 
 Rosy was smiling amiably. "Yes, I'm going to the 
 summit," she said. She put down her basket and nodded 
 toward it, as if in explanation. "It was a bargain," she 
 continued. She crooked her left arm and looked at 
 the material of which the dress was made. She was 
 thinking that if she had encountered Jacob Feld instead 
 of his wife he would have conveyed to her a much higher 
 sense of appreciation without mentioning Goldman's or 
 bargains, and perhaps without speaking of her dress 
 at all. 
 
 She waited a moment, thinking that perhaps Mrs.
 
 ROSY 101 
 
 Feld had something else to say; but she had not. And 
 Rosy thought perhaps she was still too full of her son's 
 going away to join the army to speak of anything else, 
 and that probably she did not wish to speak of that. 
 
 "I'll see you when I come back," she said cheerfully 
 as she turned away; and she wondered why the Felds 
 could not take the whole affair the war and their son's 
 going away like other people: with a certain amount 
 of gayety perhaps largely assumed instead of in 
 that peculiar way of theirs, as if something quite scan- 
 dalous had happened. 
 
 However, she shook off the rather depressing thought 
 of the Felds before she had taken half a dozen steps 
 up the steep incline which led to the summit. Indeed, 
 mountain-climbing does not lend itself to the cultiva- 
 tion of moods and fancies. She was soon exerting every 
 ounce of power she possessed. The men of the bench 
 had made the path as passable as they could, cutting 
 steps into the rock or earth over a good part of the way, 
 and constructing wooden stairways up those places 
 where no other plan was practicable. There were even 
 rude hand-railings beside the steps. But after all, the 
 ascent was difficult and taxing. 
 
 When Rosy paused, as she did at intervals, it was 
 not to enjoy the view from the occasional landing-places 
 which was really wonderful if you happened to be 
 where the trees did not crowd in upon you but to catch 
 her breath. 
 
 She found her mind swinging back and forth between 
 two conclusions. On the one hand, she was afraid she 
 was shirking a responsibility in thus going away from 
 home with the unconfessed thought of staying away 
 quite a long time, and having a good time. And on 
 the other hand she was trying to feel that she had a 
 right to enjoy herself in a perfectly care-free manner.
 
 102 ROSY 
 
 During the past two or three months life had seemed 
 to bea glorious thing to Rosy. There had been, of course, 
 a period immediately following the death of her parents 
 when she feared she should die of loneliness and despair. 
 She had stayed on in the house where her father and 
 mother had lain dead. It had not been an easy thing 
 to do, but it had seemed to her the only thing to do. 
 And there had been a time when the days seemed 
 interminable, and the nights filled with mysterious, 
 terrifying noises. 
 
 For example, there had been that very first night, 
 when she had come home from the funeral at Pisgah. 
 Late at night, when all the world was silent as a tomb, 
 there had been a sudden solemn rapping in the kitchen. 
 It had stopped almost as soon as it had begun, and she 
 was glad, because she decided that she need not get 
 up and go to see what it was. But it had sounded again, 
 and presently again. And then she had gone out to 
 see what it was; and when she felt her heart pounding 
 painfully, she tried to reassure herself by thinking how 
 unimportant a little noise would have seemed, if her 
 father and mother had been there. Nothing was astir 
 the kitchen was empty; and she had gone back to bed 
 again. And after a long period of silence the sound 
 had been repeated : imperatively, loudly. And this time 
 she had said, "I must find out what it is, or I shall 
 never be able to go to sleep." And she had searched 
 thoroughly, and had discovered at last that there was 
 a mouse in the trap in the cupboard: that it had been 
 caught only by the tail, and that it had been making 
 spasmodic efforts to get away, swinging the trap against 
 the side of the cupboard. She had released the poor 
 little creature and had gone back to bed and had fallen 
 asleep. 
 
 . . . But the glorious recuperative power of youth
 
 ROSY 103 
 
 had asserted itself little by little, and there had come 
 a time when Rosy thought chiefly of the perfect liberty 
 which was hers. She became quite happy. 
 
 Now, as she climbed the mountain, she realized that 
 new responsibilities had come to her. She was no longer 
 alone, to shape all her actions with a sole view to her 
 own comfort. She mused, with a kind of doggedness: 
 "But I'm going to enjoy myself this one afternoon. If 
 he gets hungry before I get back he can help himself. 
 There's bread and butter and plenty of eggs. He ought 
 to know how to cook eggs. And there's jelly. He'll 
 not go hungry." 
 
 She began to think of the pleasures which almost 
 surely awaited her when she got to the summit. The 
 hotel manager always made a great deal over her. She 
 recalled how, on former occasions, when she had de- 
 livered her basket of eggs, the manager had insisted 
 that she take one of the comfortable, big chairs on the 
 veranda, while he summoned a waiter to bring her 
 lemonade on a little wicker table placed by her side: 
 or sandwiches, perhaps, or ice-cream. 
 
 It was always delightful to sit there on the veranda, 
 as if she were a distinguished guest. The best part of 
 it all was to surround herself with a kind of reserve, to 
 keep people at a distance. She did this because she 
 feared that if she seemed to invite people to talk to her, 
 and they did not do so, she should feel humiliated an 
 outsider, Dependent upon the manager's courtesy. 
 
 It was delightful to fancy that those well-dressed 
 women were looking at her and saying to themselves 
 "I wonder who she is?" and noting that the manager 
 was treating her with special consideration. And she 
 had always vaguely believed that some day there would 
 be the one great adventure of all. There would be a 
 young man not at all of the mountain type: a man who
 
 io 4 ROSY 
 
 dressed elegantly, but who nevertheless possessed the 
 highest virtues pride and honor and simplicity. He 
 would be a young man who had learned to think scorn- 
 fully of a certain type of young woman: the frivolous, 
 helpless kind. And he would become quite bold yet 
 far from disrespectful when he saw her, sitting on the 
 veranda, and in some way or other he would become 
 acquainted with her. She was not sure whether he would 
 say, the very first thing, "At last I have found you!" 
 or whether he would treat her with great deference, 
 and wait a long time perhaps a year or so before 
 saying solemnly: "Do you feel that you can place your 
 destiny in my keeping?" 
 
 . . . She was on the summit now, in sight of the 
 hotel; and she put her basket down and stood for a 
 moment to cool off, and to wipe the little beads of sweat 
 from her forehead and nose. 
 
 And then suddenly she felt herself growing cold all 
 over. She had not known that she was standing quite 
 close to the heavy, motionless figure of a man. She 
 knew instantly that it was Sheriff Hammond, though 
 his face was turned away from her. He was searching 
 the slopes beneath him in a certain furtive fashion. If 
 she had not known how kind a man he was, he would 
 have made her think of a huge, cruel cat. 
 
 It was clear that he had seen her. Why, then, 
 shouldn't he have been friendly, as he had always been 
 before? He accosted her without turning, when she 
 paused and put her basket down. "Howdy, Rosy!" 
 And then he began a noiseless descent of the long flight 
 of steps, still without turning toward her.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SHE was seated on the hotel veranda, in a charming 
 spot with an infinity of valley and sky before her, and 
 with a pleasant breeze blowing about her, tugging at 
 the little wisps of hair at her temples. She stole a glance 
 at her hat on the bench beside her. It was simply ador- 
 able. She ventured to glance at her slippers. She 
 thought them quite elegant. She drew a deep breath 
 of satisfaction. What a lovely world it was, after all ! 
 The manager of the hotel, who had relieved her of her 
 basket of eggs, and who had found this choicest spot 
 on the veranda for her, had just gone, and she knew 
 the little wicker table would make its appearance 
 promptly. 
 
 And then a moment later she heard a voice a voice 
 which drawled a little, even when it was supposed to 
 express surprise. And the words were certainly not 
 the words of the young man of her dreams. They were: 
 "Dad burn me if it ain't Rosy!" And then she saw 
 Judge Powell coming toward her. 
 
 Her face beamed with pleasure. She sprang to her 
 feet and advanced with her hand extended. "Well, 
 Judge!" she exclaimed. (She pronounced the word 
 almost as if it were spelled jedge though not quite that 
 way.) And she stood looking up at him, flushed with 
 pleasure, while he held her hand and gazed at her with 
 beaming eyes and repeated: "If it ain't Rosy!" 
 
 "I'd begun to be afraid you didn't mean to come up 
 this summer," she said. And then she searched his 
 face, deliberately and unabashed. She was thinking: 
 
 105
 
 io6 ROSY 
 
 "What can have made him so much grayer in just that 
 short tune or is it that I didn't notice before?" And 
 aloud she said: "You haven't changed a speck since 
 last year unless you've got to be younger than you 
 used to be." 
 
 He had read that thought in her mind relative to 
 his gray hairs: or at least he had noted the fleeting, 
 vague look of dismay with which she had regarded him. 
 And he continued to hold her hand and to smile keenly, 
 a bit mischievously. 
 
 "What's the use in coming, when I can't get that 
 house on the bench near you any more? You see, I'm 
 a truthful person when I talk to a truthful person like 
 you. It was Mrs. Powell . . . she thought we could 
 get along all right here in the hotel, since we couldn't 
 get the cottage on the bench any more. And so we 
 thought we'd be grand people again this summer, and 
 live among the waiters and the fiddlers." 
 
 He had not yet released her hand; and when she at- 
 tempted to withdraw it he only held it tighter and smiled 
 more broadly. "I notice you're getting to be a grand 
 person yourself, Rosy: sitting here on the hotel piazza. 
 as fine as if you didn't have an idea in your head!" 
 
 "I'm sorry you couldn't get the cottage," she said. 
 And now she succeeded in freeing her hand. She clasped 
 both hands behind her and stood looking up at him. 
 She was recalling those summers on the bench, when 
 her parents were well and happy, and the Powells were 
 their neighbors. She remembered how the judge had 
 thought more of spending the evening on the front porch, 
 talking to her father about old times, and county politics, 
 and the affairs of the mountain folk, than of spending 
 them among the gay people of the hotel. And then she 
 stepped to one side of the judge so that she could see 
 if Mrs. Powell was there too: and she saw her, sitting
 
 ROSY 107 
 
 easily erect, and smiling patiently, and looking altogether 
 like almost any great painter's Portrait of a Lady 
 though rather more good-natured. 
 
 Rosy brought her hands together in front of her with 
 a low cry of joy. She was childishly excited. She said 
 "Excuse me, Jedge, I want to speak to Mrs. Powell!" 
 (She really said jedge this time.) She went hurrying 
 across the veranda; and Mrs. Powell, rising slowly, 
 came forward and took both her hands. She seemed 
 to be appropriating the girl forever and ever. "Rosy 
 dear Rosy!" she said, in her slow, soft voice. And for 
 a long moment she did not release the girl's hands. 
 
 The Powells decided immediately that she must spend 
 the evening with them. There would be music, very 
 likely; and there would be a great many things to talk 
 about. 
 
 Rosy met this proposal frankly. "I'd love to," she 
 said. "But I must go home for supper. There'll be 
 so many afternoons, you know. . . ." 
 
 But Mrs. Powell said immediately, "You'll have 
 your supper with me. The judge has had his supper. 
 We'll have it served right where we are." After all, 
 she did not say that she had not had her own supper. 
 
 Rosy looked a bit startled. "Would it be nice, to 
 eat it here in the open?" she asked. 
 
 "Would you enjoy it so, dear child?" asked Mrs. 
 Powell. 
 
 "Yes . . . yes, it would be delightful, of course." 
 
 "Then you may be sure it would be nice, too." 
 
 She sent the judge away to the dining-room. There 
 wasn't even an exchange of glances between them. And 
 he came back in a moment or two to say that the waiter 
 was on his way. 
 
 . . . Later they went to see the sunset, a glorious
 
 io8 ROSY - 
 
 view of which could be had from what the hotel literature 
 \ called the Bishop's Throne: a natural terrace at the 
 western end of the plateau which formed the summit 
 of the mountain. It seemed that there had been a gen- 
 eral agreement among the hotel guests to meet at the 
 Bishop's Throne on this occasion, and men from the 
 hotel had carried chairs to the western terrace. The 
 wreck of a patriarchal oak the only tree on the summit 
 which had fallen during the recent tornado had been 
 cleared away, and everything about the terrace made 
 neat and trim. 
 
 It was a sort of audience that assembled there as 
 if a concert had been arranged; and even before the 
 sun was ready to set, men's and women's faces were 
 warmed by a deep glow, as if they had gathered before 
 an immense fireplace. 
 
 The sun fulfilled its part of the programme gloriously. 
 There were just enough clouds for a brilliant effect, 
 and they seemed to be actually afire when the sun had 
 got completely behind them. When the colors faded 
 somewhat the audience pretended to see certain out- 
 lines and pictures: a great sea with many islands, a 
 desert with isolated shrubs and trees. The old story 
 of Polonius was repeated. 
 
 "It is like a sea covered with ships," said one. 
 
 "Yes," declared another, "or like a desert with lonely 
 trees on it." 
 
 "Yes, very like a desert," some one else agreed, "or 
 like . . ." The various fancies covered great scope 
 even to a ruined castle, with a flock of sheep lying in 
 a meadow before it. This, indeed, was hailed as the 
 best description of all. They could all see the castle: 
 yes, and there were the sheep. You could now see them 
 moving, grazing their way across the meadow. 
 
 . . . The colors faded entirely and it was just a
 
 ROSY 109 
 
 twilight sky, with a few gray clouds in it. Some one 
 in the audience said "Ho, hum!" in a bored voice. 
 
 Rosy turned to see who it was that sat on the other 
 side of her from Judge and Mrs. Powell. She uttered 
 a little cry of surprise. There sat the two Minturn girls 
 sisters of Nat Minturn. 
 
 She did not know them very well. They had never 
 lived on the mountain. Their home was quite an elegant 
 one, a mile or so up the river, and was thought to be 
 comfortable and attractive enough, even during the 
 hot summer months. The Minturns had always been 
 regarded as reticent people all save Nat, who had 
 always manifested a kind of shy eagerness to be friendly 
 with every one. 
 
 Rosy addressed them with a certain lack of assurance: 
 "Isn't that you, Fanny and Evelyn?" 
 
 She was not sure why she felt rather uncomfortable 
 in addressing them. She was afraid they would speak 
 of their brother there had been something in the Pisgah 
 paper just the week before about his regiment being 
 in France. She was afraid they might boast about hav- 
 ing a brother in the army; and she felt sorry for them. 
 
 And then she began to feel strangely chilly and 
 then uncomfortably warm: for the Minturn girls did 
 not pay any attention to her. They continued to look 
 straight before them, though nobody else was looking 
 at the sunset now. They held their heads in a rather 
 lofty manner. And Rosy knew it was their intention 
 to snub her: not quite rudely, but none the less effec- 
 tually. They did not know how to snub any one deftly, 
 she thought, and they lacked the courage to show her 
 boldly that they did not wish to be friendly with her. 
 They made her think of kittens, which really know what 
 you are about, but which refuse to pay any attention 
 to you.
 
 no ROSY 
 
 But she forgot the Minturn girls for a moment. Mrs. 
 Powell was leaning toward her, her hand on the judge's 
 knee. "You mustn't worry about the dark coming, 
 Rosy. The judge will see that you get home safely 
 you poor, lonely child, j^ou!" The final words were 
 spoken precisely as if they were a caress. 
 
 Rosy knew that the Minturn girls were leaning for- 
 ward now, staring at Mrs. Powell in amazement, and 
 taking in every detail of her lovely and gracious person. 
 She knew also that they were alternating their gaze 
 at Mrs. Powell with amazed glances at each other. She 
 felt humiliated that she should be pleased because the 
 Minturn girls were there to hear Mrs. Powell speak 
 to her hi such a lovely way. 
 
 She did not reply to Mrs. Powell, unless a dubious, 
 wistful smile may be said to be a reply. She was think- 
 ing: "She believes there is nobody in the house now 
 but myself. And I cannot tell her that there is some one 
 else there." 
 
 ... It was quite dark when she left the hotel to 
 go home. She remained with the Powells a little longer 
 than she wished to. She was trying to think of some 
 way of preventing Judge Powell from going with her 
 down to the bench. Her heart smote her when she 
 thought how old he looked; and she experienced a deeper 
 pang when she realized that she should no longer feel 
 happy and proud to have him in her house, as she used 
 to do. No matter how well she might manage, it would 
 be fearfully uncomfortable to have him there. She 
 should feel guilty she should not be able to look into 
 his face. She had no right to conceal anything from 
 one who had always been such a loyal friend. Yet there 
 were now things which she could not tell, even to Judge 
 Powell. And she knew he would insist upon going with 
 her, if she confessed that she meant to go alone.
 
 ROSY in 
 
 At length she thought of the right thing to do. She 
 informed the Powells that she must go, because she 
 had another call to make while she was on the summit; 
 and they bade her good night and watched her vanish 
 into the obscurity beyond the hotel lawn. 
 
 The judge's comment, after she was gone, was: 
 "Didn't she look like a picture, in that nice dress?" 
 
 And Mrs. Powell, like a benevolent spider, waited 
 for her superior fly to get farther into her web. "Yes," 
 she conceded quietly. 
 
 "And" added the judge "would she look still 
 prettier in one of those confections, do you call them ? 
 you have made for yourself?" 
 
 "Yes," was the complacent reply. "Though a con- 
 fection for her would be a little different. A little more 
 of a confection." 
 
 "I wonder," ruminated the judge. 
 
 . . . Rosy felt no uneasiness at all about going down 
 the steps to the bench in the dark. Her only misgiving 
 had to do with the house she had so long deserted, and 
 the guest she had left in it. Nat would think she never 
 meant to return. 
 
 Nevertheless it was depressingly lonely after the last 
 of the summit lights had been left behind her and only 
 the vague, uninviting steps lay before her. And then, 
 after she had descended only a little way, and had turned 
 a corner around a huge boulder, she was startled by 
 the sight of a lantern there before her on the path. A 
 lantern, shut in oddly by the mists which were begin- 
 ning to gather on the mountain, and the obscure, om- 
 inously quiet figure of a man. 
 
 She thought with a sinking heart of Sheriff Ham- 
 mond, whom she had last seen that afternoon, not far 
 from this spot. But she reminded herself that she was 
 foolish to entertain fears of the sheriff. He had always
 
 ii2 ROSY 
 
 been friendly with her; and even if he had decided to 
 make a close examination of the whole mountain for 
 Zeb Nanny . . . well, there was no reason for her to 
 fear him. 
 
 She went on her way resolutely; and when the lan- 
 tern was lifted presently she asked herself in a puzzled 
 manner: "Can it be somebody waiting for me?" 
 
 It was somebody waiting for her. It was Jacob Feld. 
 He called out to her cheerfully "Is that you, Rosy?" 
 And when she reached the landing on which he stood 
 he added: "Mother said you went up to the summit 
 to-day, and that she hadn't seen you come back." 
 
 He turned and walked by her side, holding the lan- 
 tern so that she could see the steps better, and even 
 taking her hand when the way was rough. 
 
 Rosy was thinking: "He must have come just on 
 purpose to meet me. He has been waiting maybe a 
 long time." She felt her heart swell. But she said with 
 an earnest effort to speak severely: "You shouldn't 
 have bothered about me, Mr. Feld. You know I know 
 the way perfectly." 
 
 He did not reply to this; and together they descended 
 the steps until they came out upon the level bench road. 
 
 Minturn was sitting just inside the door, in one of 
 the great comfortable rocking-chairs the house con- 
 tained, in almost pitchy darkness, when she entered 
 the room. 
 
 With the wariness which was a new development 
 she closed the door before she uttered a word; and then 
 she asked, almost impatiently: "Why didn't you make 
 a light?" 
 
 He did not reply to her question. Instead, he arose 
 and came toward her impulsively. In the darkness 
 she could hear him breathing deeply. "Rosy!" he ex-
 
 ROSY 113 
 
 claimed. He felt for her hand and drew her closer to 
 him. "I thought you'd never come!" he added re- 
 proachfully. And then before she was quite aware of 
 what he meant to do he had put his other hand about 
 her shoulder and was drawing her into an eager em- 
 brace.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FOR the slightest fraction of a second it seemed to 
 her that it would be very nice to have him embrace 
 her. So much of the world was lovely why should 
 there be any exceptions anywhere ? But then she found 
 herself drawing away from him resolutely. An embrace 
 wasn't just like shaking hands. It seemed to have a 
 different meaning. It needn't have done so, so far as 
 she could see but she knew it was understood to mean 
 something quite different. 
 
 She thought: "Nat is glad to have me back again. 
 It seems good to him to have somebody with him. And 
 he is grateful. But an embrace is too much." 
 
 She did not know what love was, really. She did 
 not know, despite those dreams which had had to do 
 with the arrival, after a long time, of a splendid creature 
 who would make life seem to her a different thing en- 
 tirely. And yet of late there had been strange, wistful 
 dreams vague yet lovely, in which there had been 
 drum-beats and bugle calls, and a soldier who had gone 
 away to France. What had it meant that look he 
 had given her before he went away? Why should his 
 final handclasp have meant so much more than many 
 words ? 
 
 There was unmistakable resolution in her manner 
 as she drew away from Minturn. "You mustn't!" 
 she said; and it seemed to her that her voice expressed 
 actual dislike for him. "I must make a light," she added. 
 She knew that he was wounded, resentful; yet she felt 
 excited, almost exultant as if she had effected an escape. 
 She realized now that she had been troubled because 
 of her relationship with him, and she decided that she 
 would worry no more. She tried to speak as if there 
 
 114
 
 ROSY 115 
 
 were only a casual relationship between them. "I sup- 
 pose you've had nothing to eat?" she asked. 
 
 When the light of the lamp slowly filled the room 
 she stepped back to the other side of the table and as- 
 sumed an energetic, practical air. 
 
 The muscles about his eyes contracted because of 
 the light. "You know I couldn't have made a light," 
 he said. "Every one knows everything, here on the 
 bench. They knew you had gone to the summit, of 
 course. What would they have thought if they'd seen 
 a light here?" 
 
 He spoke unpleasantly; and she replied with spirit: 
 "I don't believe people notice as close as air that." 
 
 "But they do!" he declared; and he looked after 
 her angrily as she turned to go into the kitchen. 
 
 She sighed faintly at the thought of having to descend 
 into an atmosphere of frying-pans and smoking grease 
 and broken eggs, after that heavenly table up at the 
 hotel. But she conquered this weakness. One must 
 do one's duty, and do it cheerfully, of course. 
 
 She was amazed when she heard his footsteps behind 
 her, approaching in a menacing manner. He reached 
 the kitchen door before she did, intercepting her. Then 
 he tried to control himself. "Don't go out there now," 
 he besought her. And then because she paused obe- 
 diently, he resumed a dictatorial air. "Rosy, we must 
 come to an understanding," he said. "You know I 
 can't go on living this way, like a mouse. I should go 
 crazy. We've got to do something." He stood with 
 either hand against the door casing, barring her way, 
 and facing her menacingly. 
 
 A strange calm suddenly possessed her. "Well," 
 she said, " ... do what?" 
 
 He would have said: "We could be married." He 
 had been turning over in his mind the possibilities of
 
 n6 ROSY 
 
 a secret marriage of sending for a minister from a dis- 
 tance. It had seemed to him that it might be managed. 
 But a kind of latent fury in her manner silenced him. 
 He stared at her as if he had never really seen her be- 
 fore. "Why, Rosy! . . ." he exclaimed; and he stood 
 aside and watched her wonderingly as she went out into 
 the kitchen. 
 
 She seemed almost immediately to forget the stress 
 of that moment. She looked about for kindling with 
 which to start the fire. And- presently she was smiling 
 faintly, though she kept her face turned away from 
 Minturn. "It's like having your married troubles begin 
 without ever having been married," she thought. 
 "That's the way the Springers talk and they've been 
 married thirty years." She thought how at any previous 
 time he would have offered to help build the fire to be 
 useful in some way or other. And then it occurred to 
 her that perhaps he was more deeply wounded than 
 she had realized. It must have been lonesome in the 
 hut all by himself. 
 
 She tried to put herself in his place; and she knew 
 that she should have developed a violent temper if she 
 had been required to spend whole days and nights in 
 the house, fearful of being seen, and denied the relief 
 of even a word with those who came into the house. 
 The indignity of it must be terrible: to have to hide 
 whenever anybody came. 
 
 She turned about with the thought of speaking to 
 him more gently of showing him that she wished to 
 do her share in dispelling the cloud which had settled 
 over them. But before she could frame a sentence she 
 was arrested by the sound of footsteps out in the road. 
 
 Minturn had heard those footsteps too; and he stood 
 as if turned into an image, listening to the sound. 
 
 They turned off the road and came nearer the hut.
 
 ROSY 117 
 
 "It's somebody coming!" whispered Rosy; and he 
 nodded. And as he had done on other former occasions, 
 he tiptoed to the ladder and ascended it hurriedly. She 
 looked after him anxiously, thinking: "He'll have to 
 wait for his supper again." And then there was a rap 
 at the door. 
 
 She did not respond immediately. She wished to 
 be sure that Nat had settled down in his place in the 
 attic, so that he would not be betrayed by creaking 
 timbers. She moved a chair somewhat noisily, in 
 spurious token of the fact that she was making ready 
 to respond to that tap at the door. And then after an- 
 other brief interval she might have been thought to 
 be laying aside sewing or a book she went and opened 
 the door. 
 
 The Feld girls were there, their fair faces framed in 
 the darkness behind them. They stood, one a little 
 in front of the other, as they nearly always stood: these 
 relative positions presenting a complete epitome of 
 their characters. 
 
 Hilda Feld was generally thought to be a kind of 
 indiscreet, forward girl according to the mountain 
 standards. She talked incessantly at times, fearlessly, 
 inconsequentially. She often spoke tactlessly realizing 
 when it was too late that she had done so. She was 
 always ready with a pronounced opinion often realizing 
 tardily that she had no right to an opinion. 
 
 Mary, her sister, was considered to possess precisely 
 the merits which Hilda lacked. She moved about some- 
 what like her sister's shadow. She was forever looking 
 at Hilda with wide eyes and an expression which was 
 equivalent to the words, "Why, Hilda!" It seemed 
 to be her mission in life to go about counteracting Hilda 
 to efface the unfortunate impressions created by her 
 sister. Yet they were very fond of each other.
 
 n8 ROSY 
 
 It was Hilda who entered Rosy's door first. She was 
 talking before the door was well open. "We're not 
 going to stay but a minute," she was saying, "but father 
 thinks you must be awfully lonesome sometimes. ..." 
 
 Mary had entered by now, and with her wide eyes 
 on Hilda she said: "We were lonesome ourselves, Rosy, 
 and we always enjoy visiting you, of course." 
 
 Rosy was smiling faintly. She said to Mary: "Hilda 
 didn't mean that you came just because you were sorry 
 for me." 
 
 Hilda spoke again with an effect of shouldering the 
 others aside. "The idea!" she exclaimed; and then 
 she went on, while Mary regarded her with an air of 
 fatality: "And we've brought you a letter. Springer 
 has just come up from Pisgah and he brought the mail 
 ours and yours too. He thought maybe we'd like to 
 bring you yours. It's a letter with a foreign postmark, 
 and we wondered " 
 
 Mary began to efface this unfortunate impression 
 instantly. "We didn't want you to have to wait for 
 your letter," she said. 
 
 Rosy took the letter with a cry of eagerness which 
 she could scarcely have explained to herself. Her fingers 
 trembled as she opened it. 
 
 Hilda persisted: "I said you couldn't know anybody 
 abroad but Nat Minturn; and the letter having that 
 foreign postmark " She seemed to feel that she was 
 going too far, or at least that Mary would think so. 
 She checked herself; but she could not help adding a 
 moment later: "It seems too romantic, getting a letter 
 from Nat, and him a soldier, and in France and all." 
 
 Rosy just glanced at the letter, and then she knew 
 that she did not wish to read it while there were others 
 about. She tried to assume a perfectly calm manner. 
 She folded the letter and replaced it in its envelope.
 
 ROSY 119 
 
 No, she could not read that letter now a letter which 
 began in that way. This time it was not a letter of 
 apology. It was a love-letter. She wished she might 
 rise and dance about the room and shout. She feared 
 that perhaps she might do so if she did not try to con- 
 trol herself. 
 
 Hilda seemed almost affronted. "But aren't you 
 going to read it and tell us what Nat's got to say?" 
 she demanded. 
 
 She turned defiantly toward Mary before she had 
 finished speaking; but Mary, her color slightly height- 
 ened, held her ground. "She doesn't want to read it 
 until she is alone, Hilda," she said severely. 
 
 "Oh, well . . ." said Hilda. It was rather pathetic, 
 the way she accepted reproofs, as if they were a part 
 of the elements by which she existed like air and water 
 and fire. She sighed with childlike candor. However, 
 she instantly recovered her wonted energy and purpose- 
 fulness. Her voice arose to a shuttle-like pitch of in- 
 dustry. "What surprises me," she said, "is that Nat 
 Minturn should have been the first of our boys to go. 
 You'd have guessed he would be the very last." She 
 gained such impetus immediately that she did not even 
 know that Mary was opening her lips repeatedly in an 
 effort to say something to keep abreast of her work 
 of effacement. However, Mary was at a loss for words. 
 She could scarcely have said: "But Hilda, Nat is Rosy's 
 sweetheart. You mustn't say such things about him." 
 No one had ever supposed that Rosy and Nat were 
 sweethearts, though they had been quite friendly when 
 they were younger. And though his having written 
 to her before he wrote to anybody else might be thought 
 to establish the fact, it was a subject which must be 
 referred to delicately in Rosy's presence. 
 
 Hilda continued: "If you'd have asked me, I'd have
 
 120 ROSY 
 
 said he was a coward. I believe you used to think so 
 yourself, Rosy, when we all used to play together. If 
 you cared for him more than for the others it was be- 
 cause ... do you remember the time you found a 
 squirrel that had been shot and not killed, and made 
 such a fuss over it? It must have been like that. So 
 far as I'm concerned . . . I'm going to tell you some- 
 thing I never told to another mortal soul." 
 
 Mary hastily interposed: "If you mean pity, Hilda, 
 it's absurd a nice boy with a father who doesn't know 
 how rich he is!" 
 
 "Oh! a rich father ... I'm talking about Nat." 
 
 Rosy leaned back in her chair and looked with im- 
 partial interest from one of the girls to the other. Her 
 expression was such as it might have been if a limited 
 museum of curious objects had been set down for her 
 inspection. 
 
 Hilda took a comb out of her heavy, pale hair and 
 began to readjust the knot in it which she had made 
 of various coils. She put hairpins between her lips. 
 Her manner conveyed the stern injunction, "Don't any 
 one speak until I tell you the rest," and Rosy became 
 slightly rigid, and looked at Hilda with an expression 
 which was becoming almost incredulous, while Mary's 
 face brightened with expectancy. She was always in- 
 terested in Hilda's revelations, because they were some- 
 times quite electrifying; and there was always time 
 for admonition after she had said what she had to say. 
 
 "I started around the bench with him one time," 
 resumed Hilda, adjusting her comb with jablike move- 
 menta "We were both just fifteen years old. And 
 we came to the Devil's Pulpit." She paused and looked 
 a kind of impatient inquiry at Rosy. 
 
 "I know," said Rosy. She had not seen the Devil's 
 Pulpit for a long time, but she recalled it: a kind of
 
 ROSY 121 
 
 spur rising from the main body of the mountain an 
 integral part of the mountain, indeed with a bottomless 
 fissure separating it from the main structure. A leap 
 of some four feet carried you across the chasm, and you 
 found yourself on the spur, with only a stunted pine- 
 tree for company. The spur, of a rounded shape, had 
 a diameter of less than twenty feet. 
 
 Hilda went on. "I jumped across. Every last one 
 of us used to do that, you know, when nobody was look- 
 ing. And I called to Nat to follow. But he didn't fol- 
 low. And when I looked back there he stood, as white 
 as a sheet. He called to me in a whisper to come back. 
 He had been looking down and you know that wouldn't 
 do. I asked him if he was a coward. And I jumped 
 back and forth two or three times. I actually got him 
 to jump too for the first and last time in his life, I'll 
 bet. And then the funniest part of it all happened. 
 He actually trembled. He asked me with the stiffest 
 look about his lips how we were going to get back. And 
 I said 'It's no further back than it was across.' And 
 then, what do you suppose? There was a snake a 
 rattler. A great big one. It came up out of the rocks 
 and lay between us and our way back. It curled up 
 and rattled. And what do you suppose Nat did then? 
 He shinned up that old pine-tree. He certainly knows 
 how to climb. He was screaming, actually. He kept 
 calling, 'Hilda ! Hilda !' You know there wasn't room 
 in the tree for two. And there was I alone with that 
 horrid snake, and Nat safe up in the tree." 
 
 "Hilda !" exclaimed her sister Mary; and even Rosy 
 gave her undivided attention for the moment. 
 
 "It didn't bother me a bit," resumed Hilda. "I 
 might have been a little nervous, but I was too mad 
 to know it. I just looked once at Nat, and then I picked 
 up a handful of rocks and went after that snake. I had
 
 122 ROSY 
 
 its back broken before I threw three times. It seemed 
 to be trying to bite itself. It threshed around and then 
 it rolled out of sight. And I made the jump again and 
 went on home. I didn't look back once. And that 
 was the last time Nat Minturn and I ever spoke to each 
 other." 
 
 There was an interval of silence and then Mary said, 
 with an appealing glance at Rosy: "Sometimes it's the 
 people who shrink most from danger who do the best 
 of all when they make their minds up." She felt that 
 after all, Hilda should not have told the story of Nat's 
 bad behavior not before Rosy. And she was afraid 
 she might go from bad to worse. "I think we ought 
 to go now, and let Rosy read her letter," she said rather 
 severely. 
 
 They went away after innumerable fragments of 
 sentences, Mary waiting until Hilda had gone on in 
 advance, as if she needed to be driven or guided, before 
 she followed. Her last glance at Rosy was one of plead- 
 ing and apology. 
 
 And when they were gone Rosy sat motionless, her 
 level glance seemingly suspended, and a faint, inexplic- 
 able smile on her lips.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IT was Judge Powell's claim that he derived no great 
 pleasure from the Summit Hotel until an hour when 
 all the other guests had ceased to enjoy it: at one or 
 two o'clock at night, when practically everybody was 
 asleep. During these hours, and later, it was his habit 
 to sit out on the veranda and smoke and talk to two or 
 three other congenial persons who assembled there with 
 him. 
 
 There was the hotel manager, Price, a Kentuckian 
 who had owned and bred race-horses in his earlier years, 
 and who had a fine talent for recalling pictures and stories 
 of that South which had passed away. And there was 
 the house physician, Hood, a young fellow of unfailing 
 good humor and a pleasant habit of deferring to men 
 who were older than himself, even when his mental 
 abilities might have justified him in asserting himself. 
 
 On the night of Rosy's visit to the summit the judge 
 emerged from the hotel at a rather late hour and found, 
 just as he had expected to do, a vacant chair waiting 
 for him at the end of the veranda, where the manager 
 and the doctor were smoking their cigars. He had gone 
 up to sit a little while with Mrs. Powell, and to tell her 
 good night; and now he looked forward to an hour 
 or perhaps hours wholly unmarred by the necessity 
 of being or seeming stimulated: a delightful period 
 during which the conversation would take its own course, 
 and rise or fall of its own volition. And if there should 
 be nothing to say, there would be wholly unembarrassed 
 silences, and rest and the curling away into obscurity 
 of fragrant clouds of smoke. 
 
 123
 
 124 ROSY 
 
 On this occasion, however, there was something to 
 say. The manager was speaking of Rosy: of what he 
 called the hard struggle she had been required to make, 
 and of her unfailing good spirits. Her conduct, he 
 thought, afforded a lesson to nine-tenths of the men 
 who got along easier and were more ready to complain. 
 
 As the judge pulled his chair a little closer to the rail- 
 ing and sat down and found a perch for his feet, the 
 manager remarked. 
 
 "We were speaking of Rosy, Judge." And after a 
 moment he added, as if he were inviting reminiscences, 
 "I believe you and her father knew each other a good 
 many years ago?" 
 
 The judge very deliberately produced a cigar-cutter 
 and removed the end from a fresh cigar. And then he 
 struck a match. The flame illuminated his face, bring- 
 ing it out, ruddy and clear, amidst the obscurity. It 
 touched his eyes and revealed in them an expression 
 at once pensive, and solemn, and proud. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. He waved the match until its 
 flame was extinguished. "Did you ever hear," he asked, 
 without any seeming relevancy, "the story of the Two 
 Brothers ? A story of Syria, I think away back yonder. 
 The two brothers were very fond of each other. They 
 both tilled little fields, adjoining each other. And one 
 year there was a plague of locusts, or a drought, or some- 
 thing, and their crops were almost too sorry to be worth 
 harvesting just as we have them sometimes to-day. 
 Well, one night one of the brothers sat in his house and 
 thought of the other brother: thought of how bad his 
 crop had been, and how great his need was of his debts 
 and his burdens, and such things. He wondered how 
 his brother could possibly get along. And at last he 
 had an idea. He got up it was late at night, remember 
 and went out into his own field and gathered a few
 
 ROSY 125 
 
 poor sheaves of grain in his arms, and started as stealthily 
 as a thief into his brother's field to leave his own sheaves 
 there, you see: as if they had been part of his brother's 
 harvest. But when he started into his brother's field 
 whom should he meet but his brother moving, just 
 as he had been, stealthily, with his arms filled with 
 sheaves. You see, they had both had the same thought 
 and had done the same thing!" 
 
 After a brief silence the doctor leaned forward and 
 flicked the ashes from his cigar. "A mighty pretty 
 story," he said. 
 
 "Yes," continued the judge, rather more briskly, 
 "I knew Rosy's father long ago. We were both about 
 fourteen years old when we met for the first time. It 
 was on a Monday morning, I remember, about eight 
 o'clock. In September. It was on the campus we 
 were both starting in as students at a certain school. 
 I won't give the name of it. It was in Virginia, and it 
 was in the year 1863. 
 
 "In those years I don't think the word 'affinity' had 
 come into use, except as it was used in laboratories and 
 such places. But using the word in its later sense, I 
 think Sam Woodridge and I were affinities. And I want 
 to tell you that an affinity between two boys can be a 
 wonderful thing sometimes. These new affinities, where 
 married men and women get tangled up in dishonesties 
 and nasty messes . . . I've nothing like that in mind, 
 you understand. But when two boys choose each other 
 as mates I think the angels in heaven must go about 
 slapping one another on the backs. Nothing ugly about 
 it, you know. Not a bit of it. It's a kind of mutual 
 care and service that we're likely to outgrow when we 
 get older and busier and then we wonder why life isn't 
 the great thing it used to be. 
 
 "Sam and I drew together that morning as naturally
 
 126 ROSY 
 
 as two molecules in a rock. We just looked at each 
 other without speaking for a while, and then something 
 as commonplace as you could imagine was said about 
 the size of the campus, very likely. But certain laws 
 were at work already strong. It was the beginning 
 of a friendship that never ended until last winter, when 
 Sam died and I can't feel that it's ended yet. 
 
 "He was what you'd call a natural-born student. 
 There aren't many of them in any of our American 
 schools. It never occurred to him that he must learn 
 a lesson for the benefit it would be to him in after-life. 
 Learning was never a means, to Sam. It was a thing 
 perfect and complete in itself. His idea was to be a 
 student always if only the world would grant him so 
 much of happiness. He was going to be a great teacher 
 and go on learning always. 
 
 "He was poor so poor that it would make your heart 
 ache when you thought of him. Mighty near every- 
 thing he wore came from his mother's loom. He never 
 had a cent. Even in '63, when the whole South knew 
 what it was to see bankruptcy coming hell-bent, Sam 
 struck you as being a whole lot poorer than the other 
 boys. An uncle living a couple of miles from the school 
 gave him room and board or sold them to him. He 
 worked early and late for them: before and after school, 
 .and on Saturdays. Even on Sundays. 
 
 "I hardly need to tell you what the feeling was 
 throughout the South late in '63 even among school- 
 boys. There wasn't a one of us who didn't claim that 
 the South was bound to win the war; and yet I've an 
 idea that in every heart a spectre sat the spectre of 
 defeat. It had been nip and tuck for a long time, with 
 the eastern armies more than holding their own against 
 the North. But in the west Vicksburg had fallen that 
 year, and the Mississippi had been lost to the Confeder-
 
 ROSY 127 
 
 acy, and a new name had been written large in the story 
 of the war the name of Grant. We liked to boast of 
 what would happen when Grant came into opposition 
 to Lee. But I believe most of us were already beginning 
 to see what must happen to our cause in the end. We 
 had better men you never could have shaken our con- 
 viction on that point; but the North had more of them, 
 infinitely more. The power of the North was like time, 
 or like water: a wearing power that flesh and bone 
 couldn't resist. And still, among our people there was 
 no let-up to the sacrifices, the effort, and even hope. 
 
 "We had a year at school, Woodridge and I; but by 
 the end of '64 I'd got so that I couldn't look into a book 
 without seeing fearful pictures: Sheridan riding to put 
 an end to new hopes we'd entertained; the last of the 
 Southern ports taken by the Federals when Fort Fisher 
 fell, so that the blockade was complete; the wrecking 
 of the Alabama by the Kearsarge. And then came the 
 crowning horror, Sherman's march through Georgia. 
 
 "You can imagine what must have been running 
 through the head of a boy who had turned fifteen, dur- 
 ing that time. It was near the middle of December 
 when I made up my mind what I must do. I packed 
 my books in a bundle one day when school had let out. 
 I was to be a student no more. I was going to the war. 
 
 "You know how fanciful a boy of that age is? 
 I thought of myself as offering my services to General 
 Lee in person. I think I imagined I should go into battle 
 with his eye upon me. I was amazed to find how little 
 I had to do, after I had made up my mind. There was 
 really only one thing: I must tell the good old man 
 who had been my instructor what I meant to do. This 
 I did. And then of course I must tell Woodridge good-by. 
 
 "He had his desk in another room; and I went to 
 find him, hoping he might not have gone home yet.
 
 128 ROSY 
 
 "He was still at his desk. He was all alone. I thought 
 he looked startled when I entered the door. I imagined 
 myself to be acting very calmly when I approached 
 him. I tried to keep a tremor out of my voice when I 
 said, 'Hello, Sam.' And I added, after swallowing hard, 
 'I've come to tell you good-by.' 
 
 "I thought he looked at me curiously. He didn't 
 speak for a moment; and then he said, in his quiet, 
 slow way 'I'm glad you came. I'm awfully glad.' 
 And he continued to look at me in a way which I couldn't 
 understand. I sat down on the seat across the aisle 
 from him; and after a bit we began to talk about the 
 year we had had together. We went over a lot of things, 
 and found something to laugh at occasionally. We 
 didn't mention the fact that we'd grown fond of each 
 other, of course. We tried to keep up a commonplace 
 front; and we talked and talked, in a rambling way. 
 And each of us understood that the other was pretending 
 a good deal, as we sat there and talked of trivial things. 
 
 "At last I got up: I couldn't stand it any longer. 
 I held my hand out. 'Well, good-by, Sam/ I said. Til 
 probably not see you in the morning. I want to get an 
 early start/ 
 
 "He didn't give me his hand. He stood staring at 
 me. And after a minute he said: 'You're going to get 
 an early start? I don't understand.' 
 
 "I didn't withdraw my hand. 'I thought you knew 
 what I meant,' I said. 'I'm going away in the morning. 
 I'm going to offer my services to General Lee.' 
 
 "He continued to look at me strangely, and smiled 
 in his queer, reluctant way. 'Oh,' he said at last, 'are 
 you? Then' and he nodded toward his desk, where 
 I saw that his books had been all tied together like mine 
 'Then we'll go together.' 
 
 "And we did."
 
 ROSY 129 
 
 The judge's cigar had gone out, and he tossed it over 
 the railing. He produced a fresh one, and searched 
 for his cigar-cutter again, and a match. No one broke 
 the silence which followed. It seemed that there must 
 be something more to the story. 
 
 "It all ended not very long after that," continued 
 the judge; "the next spring, you know. The last day 
 of all is as clear to me as if it had been yesterday. I 
 think most of our fellows had pretty much the same 
 feeling you have when the first spring day comes, after 
 a long winter. But for myself ... I remember a big, 
 quiet Yank called me 'boy,' and wanted to share his 
 rations with me. I was hungry I remember how hun- 
 gry : but I gave him what you call a cold look very 
 cold. I told him I shouldn't care to accept any courtesies 
 from him. I suppose I thought I was better than Gen- 
 eral Lee ! And I remember how he just looked at me 
 sadly and flushed and turned away. I've wished often 
 since many and many a time that I could meet that 
 man just once again and show him something a little 
 nearer his own quality. 
 
 "I remember how ugly they looked to me then 
 those Yankee soldiers: with their odd cocked hats which 
 seemed to slouch forward, and their hideous uniforms. 
 Our uniforms . . . why, most of our fellows didn't have 
 shoes that matched. Some didn't have shoes at all. 
 We were tricked out in what one of our fellows called 
 etceterys. As a matter of fact, that's about all the South 
 had to fight with during the last year or so etceterys. 
 You see, I was still a rebel. Dad burned if I don't be- 
 lieve even yet if you woke me sudden out of a sound 
 sleep I'd be mostly rebel for a minute or two. 
 
 "I went back to school the next fall; but Sam Wood- 
 ridge never came back. It seemed he had to go home 
 and take care of his mother. They owned a little hill-
 
 130 RC/SY 
 
 side farm somewhere in Virginia. And Sam's father 
 and his older brother, who had gone through four years 
 of the war without a scratch, both fell the day Rich- 
 mond surrendered. And Sam's mother had some sort 
 of breakdown. She had to be cared for the same as a 
 child and there was no one but Sam to do it. She 
 lived for four years, and by that time it was too late 
 for Sam to think of going to school any more. He'd 
 sent for his old schoolbooks, and he went on with his 
 studies at home but you know that never amounts 
 to much, somehow. 
 
 "And then I lost track of him. I found him again 
 by accident, years afterward, here in the Arkansas 
 mountains after I'd been settled in Little Rock, prac- 
 tising law, for a long while. 
 
 "It seemed he'd taken to teaching school in a fashion: 
 hunting out obscure, impoverished little neighborhoods, 
 where the young people were growing up wild, mostly: 
 and he taught them for whatever they could afford to 
 pay him. I've heard that he used to send part of their 
 money back to poor families who could least afford to 
 pay. 
 
 "I've always believed he could have done better as 
 a teacher than he did. He might have got a professor- 
 ship in some little college, I think or I've no doubt 
 he could have got to be principal of a small-town school. 
 I think the way he felt about it ... can you imagine 
 a man with character and knowledge enough to be an 
 archbishop refusing to be just a priest, if the chance 
 came, and preferring to be a missionary? I've an idea 
 that's the way Sam felt. 
 
 "He taught a handful of God-forsaken urchins here 
 in the shadow of Moab for a few years, and then he 
 met Rosy's mother. Rosy's mother . . . well, when 
 you see Rosy, you see her mother all over again. I don't
 
 ROSY 131 
 
 know how she happened to fall in love with a middle- 
 aged soldier. You know there's no explaining such 
 things. But they were so happy together that you felt 
 almost afraid for them you've felt that way about 
 people sometimes? And so a good many things were 
 made right for Sam. I think if you'd come to strike 
 a balance you'd find that he got more joy out of life 
 than most men do. 
 
 "But I never go along the bench road where the old 
 stone wall is the wall he never finished without re- 
 calling a certain look in his eyes, when he'd be casting 
 about for a rock of a certain size and shape. He used 
 to say, with that half -smile of his, 'I'll never finish my 
 wall, you know,' as if he knew that destiny meant 
 that he should never finish anything. But I don't know 
 . . . sometimes I fancy Sam's wall will go on to the 
 last fine, fit stone off yonder where he is now, with 
 Rosy's mother. 
 
 "Yes, yes indeed I knew Rosy's father well."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AT the very moment when Judge Powell was say- 
 ing "Yes, I knew Rosy's father well," Mrs. Powell 
 awoke out of a sound sleep with just one clear thought 
 in mind: she must immediately begin preparations for 
 taking Rosy back to Little Rock, when the summer 
 was ended. Almost every one must have had occasion 
 to observe that when two persons have spent long and 
 sympathetic years together they frequently think of 
 the same thing at the same time, even when they are 
 apart from each other. Coincidence, it may be or is 
 it what is called telepathy? 
 
 Whatever may be the explanation of such things, 
 it is a fact that Judge Powell held the dial of his watch 
 toward the dim light of the hotel window after he had 
 completed his little story about Rosy's father, and re- 
 marked that it was just fifteen minutes past one; and 
 the next morning Mrs. Powell related to her husband 
 how she had awakened the night before with a kind 
 of startled consciousness of Rosy and her needs in mind, 
 and how she had turned the light on and looked at the 
 clock and noted that it was precisely a quarter past 
 one. 
 
 "I am afraid it means she has some special need of 
 us," said Mrs. Powell, as she and the judge sat at their 
 late breakfast. 
 
 Whereat the judge laughed easily and cautioned her 
 lightly against permitting herself to become fanciful. 
 But nevertheless they agreed that it was a charming 
 
 132
 
 ROSY 133 
 
 morning for a walk, and that the bench road would 
 surely be an attractive place in the forenoon, and that 
 there would be nothing amiss in calling on Rosy. In- 
 deed, the call on Rosy had been waiting for nothing 
 more than a coincidental inclination. 
 
 They did not attempt the short cut by the almost 
 perpendicular steps. Mrs. Powell always made instinc- 
 tive selection of the courses which became her, and a 
 lady can only look comical when she climbs a ladder. 
 One remembers how audiences used to laugh at charm- 
 ing Ethel B anymore when she climbed the ladder in 
 her play, Sunday. Mrs. Powell did not wish to look 
 comical and of course there was no need to be in a 
 hurry. 
 
 They walked slowly across the campus-like grounds 
 surrounding the hotel, and disappeared amid the trees 
 at the far verge of the plateau. Mrs. Powell was dressed 
 in white silk of an almost gauze-like texture: white, 
 yet with a tone of silver in it, to match her hair; and 
 she carried a white silk parasol to which she subtly im- 
 parted the character of an ornament, rather than a thing 
 of prosaic utility. There wasn't a man on the veranda, 
 old or young, who didn't watch her until she was out 
 of sight. 
 
 "What I strongly suspect," said Mrs. Powell, as she 
 and her husband began to descend the road which led 
 to the bench, "is that you've got some notion about 
 Rosy that you haven't let me know about some ro- 
 mantic belief in her being happier where she is now than 
 she could be anywhere else." 
 
 The judge looked at her sharply or rather he looked 
 at a section of silk parasol sharply. Mrs. Powell's face 
 was not visible just at that moment. "The truth is, 
 I have got some such notion," he confessed. "She is 
 almost singularly happy now. Of course, it may be
 
 134 ROSY 
 
 something that she carries within her: something that 
 she could take with her anywhere. Though I'm in- 
 clined to doubt that." 
 
 "It is something within her. It's very largely her 
 health and her youth. But she'll not have them always. 
 At least she'll not have her youth. Try to picture her 
 as a middle-aged woman living here on the bench in 
 winter as well as summer with a mind that hasn't 
 gone on developing and finding interests to take the 
 place of the things that are all-sufficient while she's 
 only a child." 
 
 The judge frowned. "I can't picture it," he said. 
 "At least, I don't want to. What's to prevent her mind 
 from developing ? " 
 
 She shifted the parasol so that she could look into 
 his face. "You ought to be ashamed of that question," 
 she said with a certain serenity. "She requires educa- 
 tion you know she does." 
 
 He was quite dismayed. "You mean schoolmasters? 
 and Greek and Latin?" 
 
 She affected an air of one who is patient despite real 
 provocation. "I don't mean that," she said. "Poor 
 child it's probably too late for that. But after all, 
 those things are largely incidental. What I mean is 
 that she must learn how to dress, and how to meet people, 
 and how to listen and observe things of that kind." 
 
 He chose to single out only one of the necessities she 
 had mentioned. "To meet people?" he repeated. "It 
 wouldn't occur to me that she didn't know how to do 
 that. Do you know, if I'd ever picked a pocket either 
 figuratively or otherwise I'd rather undergo a third- 
 degree examination from a whole passel of sleuths than 
 to look Rosy in the face. I would, for a fact." 
 
 She smiled her ready comprehension of this. "It's 
 true, isn't it?" she replied. And then, as if she were
 
 ROSY 135 
 
 restoring their conversation to pertinent matters, she 
 went on: "But of course she'll never have many oc- 
 casions for meeting pickpockets. What I was thinking 
 about was her training for the inevitable things of life 
 for life as a whole." 
 
 "Of course," he admitted; but after an interval he 
 added: "What sort of training have you got in mind 
 for her?" 
 
 "Oh," she replied, "I shouldn't call it training, per- 
 haps. But she ought to do certain things that other 
 women do. She ought to go to a play once in a while 
 a good play. She ought to hear a symphony. She 
 ought to meet the kind of people who lead." 
 
 He interrupted: "There's a sort of cruel streak in 
 you, honey, after all." 
 
 She smiled with gentle contempt for his crude humor. 
 "She ought to meet a greater number of people," she 
 went on. "When we go to St. Louis we could take her 
 with us and show her about a bit. Imagine her in Shaw's 
 Garden, for instance !" 
 
 "I don't get much pleasure in doing so," he rejoined. 
 "Do you know, I have a suspicion that all the things 
 you have named are meant mostly for people who can't 
 have the things they would love a great deal more.^ A 
 symphony always sounded to me like something that 
 had been composed by a man in prison for other fellows 
 in prison/) It's my idea that plays were invented for 
 bachelors in the cities ballroom boys who hadn't 
 time to go back home when they wanted to see men 
 and women and children quarrelling and fussing and 
 gossiping and cuttin' up. Something to remind them 
 of home. Rosy is home. What would be the good of 
 making her homesick just so you could give her medicine 
 for homesickness ? " 
 
 She answered serenely: "That's the trouble with
 
 136 ROSY 
 
 being a lawyer; it makes you see everything in that 
 absurd way. Of course you're not speaking seriously. 
 You might just as well say that education is all make- 
 believe. You might as well get out one of your injunc- 
 tions against evolution. For my part, I'm glad I don't 
 have to walk on all fours, as I suppose my ancestors 
 did. Imagine the condition one's skirts would be in ! " 
 
 He called her attention to a break in the foliage on 
 the mountain slope through which a limitless vista of 
 plain and river was visible. And she exclaimed graciously 
 "Ah, it is fine!" But almost immediately resuming 
 her progress she went on: "... Does she live all 
 alone?" 
 
 "Quite alone, I'm sure. There are her ' critters,' of 
 course. But yes, she lives alone." 
 
 "It mustn't be allowed," she declared. "There are 
 certain things . . . it's supposed to be a tragedy when 
 a woman has to do all her own cooking. But think of 
 her having to do all her own eating! Can't you see it 
 isn't right? And a woman ... I don't care who she 
 is, if she's a woman, she wants some one to comfort in 
 the morning, and some one to comfort her at night. 
 We're going to take her to Little Rock with us. I'm 
 going to see that she's saved." 
 
 They walked a little way in silence; but at length 
 she continued: "Of course, she'll be married some day, 
 even if we should leave her to herself. But you know 
 what the end would be. There's the story of Maud 
 Mutter . . . ." Her face became dreamily sad. 
 
 He laughed comfortably. "I never took much stock 
 in the story of Maud Mutter" he declared. "Maud 
 may have had pretty thin picking now and then on ac- 
 count of marrying the man who was ' unlearned and 
 poor/ But it always seemed to me that if 'many chil- 
 dren played round her door' she had sources of consola-
 
 ROSY 137 
 
 tion that silks and carriages couldn't have given her. 
 And for all we know she married a good deal of a man 
 which she'd not have done if she'd married the judge. 
 A poor creature, clearly. He was afraid of his sisters, 
 I believe. Can you beat that?" 
 
 She seemed to withdraw her attention from him. 
 "I've an idea all judges are rather foolish," she said. 
 
 Neither spoke for a time; and the difference of opin- 
 ion between them was by no means so clearly defined 
 that it could disturb the harmony between them. The 
 mountain road was beautiful, touched by alternating 
 spots of sun and shade. The wooded slope above them 
 afforded a harbor for many birds that twittered fitfully, 
 and appeared and disappeared. The whole mountain 
 wore a wonderful garment of green leafage and golden 
 sunshine. The quietude was like a benediction. 
 
 "This is her home!" said the judge dreamily. The 
 way narrowed and he moved on ahead. She saw that 
 he walked in a rather labored way. She recalled his 
 elastic step in other years, and her face softened and 
 she looked after him with yearning. When the way 
 broadened again he waited for her and turned to look 
 at her. In response to something he seemed to read 
 in her eyes he said briskly: "I should have put on a dif- 
 ferent pair of shoes. These I'm wearing are a little light 
 for a mountain walk." 
 
 She replied gently yet lightly: "I should have thought 
 of that for you." But his words of defense seemed even 
 more significant to her than his labored walk. 
 
 Presently he said: "You know I'm not really opposed 
 to your taking Rosy home with you if she'll go. It's 
 only that I don't feel so confident that our way is better 
 than her way as I might have felt when I was younger. 
 There was a time when it wouldn't have seemed to me 
 a formidable thing to try to change a human being's
 
 i 3 8 ROSY 
 
 destiny. I suppose we lose a certain kind of assurance 
 as we grow older." 
 
 "Yes, that's true," she said pleasantly. "I shouldn't 
 wish to urge it too strongly, you know. Perhaps we'll be 
 quite safe in letting her decide the question for herself." 
 
 A lighter humor was restored when she said, presently: 
 "What I can't bear to think of is that she may finally 
 marry some dreadfully poor fellow, if she goes on living 
 here," and he replied with a smile: 
 
 "Ah, but he wouldn't be a poor fellow if he got Rosy." 
 
 Again they stopped at an opening in the foliage where 
 a magnificent vista of river was revealed. A faint boom- 
 ing sound reached them, and she asked him what the 
 sound meant. 
 
 "You can see them at work, if you'll look closely," 
 he said, " the men in the quarry down by the river. 
 Do you see that mountain spur that stretches down 
 to the river's edge? They are there. A fellow named 
 Minturn has a quarry over there. He's a planter on 
 a pretty big scale; but I believe he's a money-grubber, 
 and he makes a good bit out of his quarries too. I be- 
 lieve he hires the work done, mostly. He has a manager 
 to run the quarry." 
 
 As they looked a puff of smoke appeared high up on 
 the distant spur, and masses of rock were thrown into 
 the air. Then the booming sound reached them again. 
 "Did you see it?" he asked. 
 
 . . . They did not stop again until they were nearly 
 at their journey's end. But for an instant Mrs. Powell 
 detained the judge when they were about to pass under 
 the shadow of the Sphinx Rock. They had often ob- 
 served it before; but now she said: "It's almost un- 
 canny, isn't it? the way it clings to its place. It 
 wouldn't be pleasant to be here, would it, if it should 
 ever fall?"
 
 ROSY 139 
 
 "But it can't fall," he replied. "If the earth were 
 all washed away, so we could see how it forms part of 
 the vast mass beneath it, we'd probably think no more 
 of its falling than we should of a small limb on an im- 
 mense tree." 
 
 Rosy received them with a delight which was not 
 to be mistaken; yet with a certain reserve, too. She 
 seemed self-conscious as she had never seemed before. 
 Mrs. Powell afterward denned her manner "It was 
 as if she were listening for other sounds while she lis- 
 tened to what we said." 
 
 But this hint of discomfort passed after a little while 
 and Rosy was quite herself again. Indeed, it was Mrs. 
 Powell rather than Rosy who seemed to be at a loss 
 for words before the visit ended. She sat as if she were 
 wholly at ease in the chair Rosy placed for her under 
 the shotgun on its wooden pegs on the wall. She drew 
 a deep breath of contentment as she relaxed in her chair. 
 She seemed not in the least conscious that Rosy's home 
 was almost as barren of comforts as a hermit's. She 
 found many things to praise: the cool shadow of the 
 bench, the neighborly aspects of the cottages farther 
 down the road; the cultivated slopes, with their vines 
 and fruit-trees "like a garden-spot somewhere in Eu- 
 rope," she thought it. 
 
 "But Rosy, child, you do get lonesome sometimes, 
 don't you?" she asked at length, in a tone of troubled 
 entreaty. 
 
 The judge sat, fitting his finger-tips together, his eyes 
 on the floor, his own opinion judicially withheld. 
 
 "I know what it is to be alone," said Rosy cheer- 
 fully, "though I suppose that's not quite the same as 
 being lonely, is it?" 
 
 Mrs. Powell conceded this point by a slight inclina-
 
 140 ROSY 
 
 tion of her head; and she spoke of other matters be- 
 fore she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her: 
 "We're rather counting, the judge and I, on a visit from 
 you this winter, Rosy. You know you've never been 
 to see us, though you've often promised to come. And 
 we were saying the other day that it ought to be easy 
 for you to close your house for the winter or for a good 
 part of it and come to us." 
 
 Rosy's laughter bubbled forth spontaneously; her 
 face was flushed with pleasure. "If I only could !" she 
 said. "But of course I couldn't." She did not explain 
 why she could not. 
 
 "Couldn't?" echoed Mrs. Powell gently. 
 
 "A house," said Rosy, ". . . there's something strange 
 about a house, after you've lived in it by yourself. It's 
 like a person. It wants to boss you. If you go away 
 even for the littlest while it seems to say severely : ' You'd 
 better hurry back ! ' You understand that, don't you ? 
 I can't say just how it is. Maybe it's your own self 
 keeping a close watch on your other self. You know 
 when you live in a house you put a lot into it besides 
 just furniture. You put something into it that fills 
 the air and is a part of the silence. If you go out, you 
 leave it there behind you. Only, if you stayed away 
 too long, I think it wouldn't be there when you came 
 back. And you could take your hat off and say 'I'm 
 home again ! ' but you'd really know that something 
 was gone, and you'd wonder what it was, and where 
 it was. It would take a long time to get it back again. 
 Maybe you never could!" She laughed again but 
 this time a little wistfully. 
 
 "Yes, dear child," said Mrs. Powell softly; "but 
 . . . we're very much in earnest about wishing to have 
 you come." 
 
 Rosy hung her head and a troubled smile played about
 
 ROSY 141 
 
 her lips. "If I only could !" she said. "But you know 
 this is my place here, don't you ? " 
 
 "It's a lovely place indeed it is ! But we wish you 
 to feel that other places are yours, too. Our home, you 
 know. I hope you'd be quite happy with us." 
 
 "If there were some one to keep things running for 
 me," demurred Rosy. "But places they're like houses, 
 only more so. They speak to you, and you get comfort 
 from them. I've always felt that if I were to leave my 
 place I'd never und another one." 
 
 "But, Rosy, dear you mustn't allow yourself to 
 feel bound. You must be free, you know. There isn't 
 any reason why you shouldn't feel free." 
 
 Rosy's glance journeyed through the open door and 
 down the bench road. "I was talking to Mrs. Feld 
 one day," she said, with an absent expression in her 
 eyes. "There was a canary in the window, in a cage. 
 And I wondered if its eyes carried like mine if it could 
 see all the miles away that I could see. I said to Mrs. 
 Feld, 'It seems a pity to keep the little thing in a cage, 
 doesn't it I mean, any bird?' And she told me that 
 it was at home in its cage, and that if she were to set 
 it free it would pine away and die. I've thought of that 
 a good many times. And sometimes it's seemed to me 
 that the only happy people are those who have some 
 kind of a cage to be in. You know what I mean? To 
 be really free ... I think maybe that's the one thing 
 I couldn't bear." 
 
 The judge's eyes were beaming at a little sunshaft 
 which crept across the floor; but Mrs. Powell said: 
 "Well, dear . . ." And then she smiled too. "One 
 mustn't be too fanciful," she added. "Perhaps you'll 
 find some one to to keep things going for you. We'll 
 not press the matter. But you'll think about visiting 
 us, won't you, when you can? We want you to know 
 that we wish it very much."
 
 142 ROSY 
 
 . . . They returned up the mountain a little later, 
 speaking of anything save Rosy's seeming obstinacy. 
 But just before they reached the summit Mrs. Powell 
 remarked: "When she becomes accustomed to the idea 
 she'll look at it differently. We must give her time." 
 
 And the judge, who was beginning to breathe with 
 some difficulty, replied "Eh? time? Oh, yes. Yes, 
 there'll be time yet."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IF life seemed to Rosy an interesting and stimulating 
 thing during those days, she was ready to confess to 
 herself that it was becoming rather more exciting than 
 she cared to have it, and so filled with complications 
 that something was pretty sure to happen before long. 
 
 There had been that letter from France, which she 
 would not have discussed with any one least of all, 
 perhaps, with the man who was almost a constant com- 
 panion. He had never asked her about the letter: he 
 had preferred to pretend that he had heard nothing 
 the Feld girls had said when they came to bring the 
 letter. And Rosy knew quite well why he had never 
 spoken to her about the letter, and occasionally in secret 
 she smiled. 
 
 It was like a fairy-tale all that that letter meant 
 to her. But it was like other fairy-tales in that it must 
 be considered with caution, lest its improbabilities be- 
 come obvious. 
 
 There was also the secret of her house to be guarded 
 a secret which became to her far more sacred with every- 
 day that passed, especially since she had received that 
 second letter. She could not speak to the Powells of 
 her hidden guest, kind and generous as they were. No, 
 not to the Powells. Least of all to the Powells ! 
 
 And always there was the fear that some one might 
 blunder across her threshold at the wrong time; or that 
 persons in authority might come and demand admittance 
 that betrayal would overtake her at last and give 
 her the appearance, even to her most faithful friends, 
 of a sly person, hiding things and speaking only half 
 the truth. 
 
 143
 
 144 ROSY 
 
 And then vague fears gave place to a more or less 
 definite black cloud which appeared on her horizon and 
 threatened to cover all her sky. It crossed her vision 
 at a moment when she was talking to Jacob Feld. 
 
 Early in the morning following the Powells' visit she 
 set out for Feld's spring, to fetch fresh water. She walked 
 with a bucket in either hand; and contrary to her wont 
 at this hour she did not seem vividly alive to all the 
 phenomena about her: the actual battle hymn of the 
 sunshine as it awakened the mountain's verdure to life, 
 and the crescendo of small creatures' voices, the birds 
 and squirrels which were beginning their day's adven- 
 tures. 
 
 She was in a strangely introspective mood, as if she 
 had just thought of something which disturbed her: 
 as if she were indeed a day older than she had been the 
 day before, and possessed new responsibilities. In brief 
 she was pondering deeply, even darkly. If she had met 
 an acquaintance on the way, that acquaintance would 
 certainly have said: "What's the matter, Rosy? you 
 look troubled." [If conscience makes cowards of us, kind- 
 ness also saps the power by which we carry on deeds of 
 duplicity; and Rosy was thinking of what the Powells 
 had said to her yesterday. 
 
 However, she encountered no acquaintances. It 
 was so early that even the bench-folk were not yet astir. 
 There was not a sign of life about the Springers' house, 
 or the Felds'. The sun searched out every part of the 
 galleries and verandas without discovering a single mov- 
 ing object. One might have supposed that the two 
 families had gone away somewhere to spend the day 
 but for that revealing, delicious feel of the very early 
 morning which was still in the air and which explained 
 clearly enough that most folk very certainly would not 
 have awakened as yet.
 
 ROSY 145 
 
 She received a little shock of glad surprise when she 
 reached the path that led down to the spring. Some 
 one was there; and she knew almost without a second 
 glance that it was Jacob Feld. He was at work in that 
 slow, placid way of his; and the fancy occurred to her 
 again that he seemed more like the genius of the spring 
 than a material householder on the bench. You might 
 have supposed that it was neither morning nor night 
 to him, but that he had been just where he was, and 
 as he was, always: guarding the spring and presiding 
 over it. 
 
 He was repairing a broken spot in the pavement; 
 it seemed that he could always find something to do. 
 It might have been supposed that he would pine away 
 and die if the spring setting were ever to attain per- 
 fection and he could never again find any way of better- 
 ing it. He straightened up and smiled as Rosy went 
 down the path toward him. 
 
 She became beamingly alert instantly. She went 
 to where the water flowed from a pipe fitted into the 
 rock, and placed one of her buckets beneath the de- 
 scending water. She put the other bucket down near 
 by to await its turn; and then she sat down on one of 
 the hickory seats of Jacob Feld's making. She patted 
 the seat beside her and looked up at him, smiling. A ray 
 of sunlight found her face as she did so and burnished 
 her hair wonderfully. "Have the boys taken your cup 
 away any more ? " she asked. 
 
 Old Feld shook his head absent-mindedly. It was 
 plain that something more momentous than the theft 
 of the cup occupied his mind. He sat down by Rosy 
 and gazed at her intently, kindly. 
 
 She thought: "He's going to scold me, and he wants 
 to begin by reminding me that he is a good friend." 
 
 If he meant to scold her he did not come to the point
 
 \l 
 
 146 ROSY 
 
 directly. He looked away from her, his gaze wandering 
 down the mountainside. And presently he said, as if 
 the thought had just occurred to him: "Did it ever seem 
 strange to you, Rosy, that they never found Zeb Nanny, 
 and never heard of him?" 
 
 Her face did not move, but her eyes did. They were 
 turned away from him. She thought: "I wonder if he's 
 going to try to trap me?" She replied, without moving: 
 "I can't say it ever did." She tried to seem wholly un- 
 concerned. 
 
 They sat side by side for a long silent interval, Feld 
 looking down the obscure gorge into which the flow of 
 the spring disappeared, after refreshing great masses 
 of fern and creating broad banks of moss. A redbird 
 was dancing from limb to limb, from tree to tree, farther 
 away from him, down into the invisible region of tree- 
 tops and precipices and abysses. Its signal note grew 
 fainter and fainter. 
 
 He seemed to find it difficult to go on with what he had 
 to say. "I was afraid we'd find him," he said finally, 
 "the first week or so after he disappeared. I was afraid 
 he'd be found dead. But I've got another idea now, 
 on account they never found him. I think he did run 
 away, after all. But . . . how could he get away with 
 the penitentiary people putting things in the paper: 
 notices, and how he looked, and such things? Like he 
 was a horse. Why wouldn't somebody find him, and 
 maybe give him a bed to sleep in, and then send for an 
 officer? What I'm thinking, Rosy, is that somebody 
 must have helped him. They could give him a room, 
 you know, and give him food. But if they did . . . you 
 know it wouldn't be safe for him to come out for years 
 you might say never." 
 
 Rosy had not moved. "Maybe somebody did help 
 him," she suggested.
 
 ROSY 147 
 
 "Well . . . yes." He stirred uneasily. Rosy had 
 the feeling that he wished her to turn her face toward 
 him, so that he might repeat that gaze of friendly as- 
 surance. But she did not face him. And presently he 
 went on 
 
 "Rosy, you've been over by Zeb's father, since Zeb 
 ran away no?" 
 
 Something in his troubled tone impelled her to face 
 him at last. "Mr. Feld," she said, "you can say what- 
 ever it is you want to say to me. I know you wouldn't 
 ask questions unless you had a good reason. Yes, I did 
 go to see Zeb's father. That isn't all. I've done so several 
 times." 
 
 He smiled with infinite relief. He patted her hand 
 lightly, where it lay beside him on the bench. "That's 
 a good girl, Rosy!" he said. And then after an interval 
 of silence "You didn't know Zeb's father, Rosy, before 
 Zeb ran away no?" 
 
 "Why, really ... no, I never did." 
 
 "So. But you went to see him, several times, 
 since . . .?" 
 
 "Yes." In spite of herself a note of defiance, of aloof- 
 ness, had come into her voice. And when the old man 
 seemed to find it difficult to proceed she went on impet- 
 uously: "I had heard about their troubles Zeb's and 
 his father's. I think it was shameful, the way they had 
 been treated. It was, too! And I told Zeb's father I 
 knew Zeb hadn't done anything he need to be ashamed 
 of or his father, either. It put heart into him. And 
 oh, Mr. Feld, he needed that! I was glad I went. I 
 shall go again, too." 
 
 The old man sat beside her frowning in perplexity; 
 and after a moment he asked, unexpectedly: "But Rosy 
 ... do you happen to know Tom Lott?" 
 
 She glanced at him in frank surprise now. "Lott!"
 
 148 ROSY 
 
 she repeated in a voice not like her own. And when she 
 went no further he continued: 
 
 "If it wasn't for Lott I shouldn't have had anything 
 to say to you at all about Zeb, I mean. But I was down 
 in Pisgah yesterday, and Lott was there. He he saw 
 you go to Nanny's house, Rosy; and he saw Nanny after 
 you'd gone away: standing straight, like he'd had good 
 news. And when he saw you go away, and Nanny stand- 
 ing straight. . . . What I mean, Rosy, is that Lott 
 thinks you know something about Zeb, on account his 
 father seemed changed after you went to see him." 
 
 A little furrow deepened in Rosy's forehead; but she 
 did not speak immediately. 
 
 The old man continued: "He was talking old Lott, 
 you know to me and Rufus Minturn. And while he 
 didn't say anything you could put your finger on, what 
 they call it, you would think from what he said that 
 you that you had been helping to cheat the law, Rosy. 
 That was what I wanted to tell you." 
 
 She took in much more than just what he said. She 
 was being talked about; it might be that she was actually 
 menaced. But she lifted her head gradually until she 
 was holding it high. Her gaze was of the steady, sus- 
 pended kind which all the bench folk knew. She said, 
 after a pause : "Well, Mr. Feld ? " Almost subconsciously 
 she was thinking: "And those Minturn girls didn't want 
 to speak to me and I couldn't guess why." 
 
 "I told him," said Jacob, "that whatever Rosy Wood- 
 ridge did was all right, so far as I was concerned, and 
 that I didn't want to stand talking to a man who would 
 say bad things about a good girl." 
 
 "That was fine," said Rosy. "And what did Mr. 
 Minturn say?" 
 
 "Well, Minturn . . . you couldn't expect him to pay 
 much attention, one way or another. He's full of his 
 son on account he is in France. But I did notice .
 
 ROSY 149 
 
 later the two of them went home together in Minturn's 
 buggy. But that might not mean anything special 
 they both living in the same neighborhood." 
 
 Rosy went over to the spring and changed her buckets. 
 She returned thoughtfully and resumed her seat, and 
 for a time she seemed to be revolving a question in her 
 mind. She began at length "Mr. Feld, if I believed 
 in Zeb's innocence and his wrongs and if I had a chance 
 to shield him from harm, to keep his secret, what do you 
 think I'd be likely to do, or that I ought to do?" 
 
 The answer to this was not quite so direct and simple 
 as she might have wished it to be. "There are two ways 
 to look at that," replied the old man. "There's Zeb's 
 interests to be thought of, and there's yours. Looking 
 at it from where Zeb stands there could be only one an- 
 swer. But Rosy . . . the world isn't kind to a young 
 woman who doesn't act always just the way it's set down 
 in the book. If it was ever known that you'd helped 
 Zeb to keep them in authority from finding out where 
 he is well, a lot of people would talk." 
 
 Again Rosy got up and went to where her buckets 
 were. She lifted the second bucket from under the flow 
 of water. Without turning about she made answer to 
 her old friend. She did not know that he was leaning 
 forward anxiously, praying, after a fashion, that she 
 might not be offended with him. "I'll tell you, Mr. 
 Feld," said Rosy, "for this once I'm willing to look at 
 it from Zeb's standpoint, and not from my own. Though 
 that's not saying, mind you, that I could take any one 
 to hjm, even if I wanted to." 
 
 Her smile was so vague as to be tantalizing as she 
 turned to go up the path. She called back pleasantly: 
 "Good-by, Mr. Feld and thank you. But just for the 
 time being I don't mind their believing that it's Zeb and 
 I against Lott and the rest of them."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ROSY did not know that on the night Zeb Nanny had 
 ridden up the mountain in the dark Jacob Feld had heard 
 the sound of a horse's hoofs on the rocky road, and realiz- 
 ing that it was unsafe for any man to be riding abroad 
 that night, had followed after the sound, meaning to 
 hail the traveller until, against the background of Rosy's 
 light, he had seen Zeb Nanny or so he had believed the 
 rider to be dismount and move athwart the shaft of 
 light toward Rosy's door. Then, knowing that the rider 
 had found a harbor, if not the destination he sought, he 
 had gone back into his own house to learn the next 
 day that Zeb Nanny's horse had been found on the moun- 
 tain, and that Nanny was missing. 
 
 These were things Rosy could not know. But it was 
 none the less plain to her that Feld was troubled in what 
 seemed a singular way for him, and that he harbored 
 thoughts which he was unwilling to put into plain words. 
 
 She thought of others besides Feld, too, in connection 
 with those spectres of disaster which were arising in her 
 path; and there were moments when she became fearful 
 and depressed, and yet other moments when she was 
 elated in a wholly unwonted way. 
 
 During those later moments she would say to herself: 
 "I am taking a real part in life. I am no longer sitting 
 on a wall, waiting for some one to pass. I have taken 
 my place in the road, so that others must look out for 
 me." 
 
 When she thought of the Powells this elation deserted 
 her completely and she would stop wherever she was 
 
 150
 
 ROSY 151 
 
 moving across the room, or on the road to the spring 
 and seem to droop and shrink. What would the Powells 
 think if they should find out that she was affording refuge 
 . . . well, if they should find out what she had been doing ? 
 Would the judge's rather fierce eyes continue to beam, 
 as they always did when he looked at her, or would they 
 become cold, and turn away from her darkly? And 
 wouldn't Mrs. Powell seem somehow not to remember 
 her any more, not to know her ? She could not imagine 
 Mrs. Powell upbraiding her; she could picture her only 
 as looking very serene and passing by. 
 
 She also thought of the Minturn girls, and how they 
 had snubbed her up on the summit; and the thought of 
 the Minturn girls was almost as disturbing as the thought 
 of the Powells though in a different way. She derived 
 a certain satisfaction in considering herself greatly su- 
 perior to the silly Minturn girls, who liked to treat people 
 meanly, but who hadn't courage enough to speak out. 
 She should not have liked to give the Minturn girls the 
 chance to say of her: "Oh, Rosy Woodridge you know 
 what people say about her /" 
 
 She tried to conclude that her secret need never be 
 revealed and that she need never pay any penalty for 
 what she had done. Why should any one ever know 
 any more than she wished to tell? She had managed 
 very well so far even during the time when there were 
 hundreds of persons on the mountain who were always 
 on the lookout for the least thing that might interest 
 them. The summer would pass speedily enough, and 
 then there would be practically no one left, either on 
 the bench or the summit, to spy upon her or to learn 
 by chance what was taking place in her house. She re- 
 flected: "When the frost comes they will all disappear 
 like the leaves, and then we can roam about the moun- 
 tain almost without any fear at all like Adam and Eve
 
 152 ROSY 
 
 in their garden. I don't see what there is for me to worry 
 about." 
 
 And yet she could not deny that a hint of warning 
 from Jacob Feld was more to be considered than really 
 definite threats, coming from other sources. Feld was 
 a man of peculiar good sense in many ways. He was 
 not one to imagine things. His life was organized ac- 
 cording to simple rules: he saw and thought simply, 
 and his conclusions were simple yet they rarely proved 
 incorrect or inadequate. "He wouldn't have spoken as 
 he did," she mused, "unless he had reason to fear that 
 I might be in danger." 
 
 . . . She saw him nearly every day: sometimes 
 many times a day. But he did not touch upon the sub- 
 ject which was uppermost in her mind until nearly a 
 week later. Then on one occasion early in the morning 
 he seemed to be waiting for her at the spring. He was 
 looking up the path as she approached, and he seemed 
 to be seeing her anew as she drew closer to him. She 
 had never seen him when he seemed so near to being 
 excited as now. 
 
 "I was down in Pisgah yesterday," he began; and 
 then they stood regarding each other a bit tensely. Feld 
 was thinking "I must be careful how I say it," and Rosy 
 was saying to herself: "I wonder what has gone wrong 
 now?" 
 
 She was sadly alarmed by his next revelation, which 
 came in the form of a question: "Did you know what 
 happened to Zeb Nanny's father?" 
 
 The color faded from her cheeks. "Oh, Mr. Feld!" 
 she cried forlornly, "tell me! . . ." 
 
 The old man's eyes searched hers almost relentlessly 
 for a swift instant; they seemed to gleam with a fuller 
 comprehension. But if he had made a discovery, or 
 believed that he had done so, he put his thoughts aside
 
 ROSY 153 
 
 for future consideration. Just now he hastily assumed 
 an unseeing air and said: "Nothing so very serious, 
 Rosy. Nothing at all, you might say. But I thought 
 you'd want to know. His house was searched yester- 
 day. They went through it from cellar to attic. 
 Through the barns and outhouses too. They thought 
 Zeb might be hiding somewhere about." 
 
 She had been breathing deeply. "Who did it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Well, that's what makes it seem ugly." If it had 
 been the sheriff, or officers of any kind, you might say 
 it was just a form, what they call it. But it wasn't. 
 It was Tom Lott and some of his friends. They went 
 to the house to pay a friendly visit, they said. They 
 talked about this and that, and then they said they had 
 heard rumors that Zeb was hiding somewhere about. 
 As neighbors and friends, they said, they'd like to be 
 able to say to every one that Zeb wasn't getting any 
 protection from his father, no matter who else might 
 be shielding him." 
 
 Rosy's eyes blazed. "Lott couldn't have called him- 
 self a friend and neighbor!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, he did," said Feld. "You see, Rosy, fellows 
 like that . . . they don't do business the way you or 
 I would. They pretend all the time. They always got 
 certain rules to go by. Lott takes the ground that he 
 never injured Nanny that the surveyors only did just 
 their duty in taking Nanny's land away from him. 
 That's their way of doing things trying to make you 
 think you just don't understand. They'd have you 
 think they live on a higher plane than yours, where 
 thoughts are accurate and just. Yes, Lott called him- 
 self a neighbor and friend to Nanny." 
 
 Rosy could scarcely speak. "And didn't Mr. Nanny 
 take a shotgun to them?" she demanded.
 
 154 ROSY 
 
 "N no; no, he didn't. Maybe he thought the 
 easiest way was the best. He told them they could 
 search his house, if that was what they wanted. And 
 he didn't stir until they had finished their job and 
 gone." 
 
 Rosy was reflecting with curious intensity; she had 
 nothing more to say, seemingly. 
 
 The old man glanced at her furtively. "But you 
 haven't asked me, Rosy, if they found Zeb," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 She only lifted her face a little, as if she seemed to 
 be gazing intently at something far off. And presently 
 she asked: "Well, did they?" 
 
 He frowned in almost childish bewilderment. "No, 
 they didn't," he said. 
 
 She would not stoop to the duplicity of saying: "I'm 
 glad of it." She continued to gaze straight before her, 
 waiting for Feld to go on. But when he maintained a 
 kind of musing silence, without removing his eyes from 
 the line of her profile, she said with feeling: "He ought 
 to have taken his shotgun to them coming into his 
 house without a warrant or anything. That's what 
 I'd have done." 
 
 "Yes," assented Feld; ". . . yes. Well, I thought 
 I'd tell you." 
 
 He stood aside when she moved toward the spring 
 with her buckets. He stood regarding her, much as a 
 simple-minded father might regard the swiftly develop- 
 ing daughter who becomes headstrong in a love-affair 
 which he cannot approve. It seemed, just as she was 
 going away, that he wished to speak to her more clearly, 
 more pointedly. But perhaps he had said all that was 
 necessary. 
 
 She went back along the bench road pondering darkly. 
 She knew very well what it was that Jacob Feld wished
 
 ROSY 155 
 
 to suggest to her: it was that Lott might appear on 
 the bench some day and go nosing about in that brazen, 
 affable way of his, and that she ought to be on the look- 
 out for him. Well, she would be. Lott shouldn't enter 
 her house, certainly. She would meet him in the road 
 and pelt him with stones. She would tell him what 
 she thought of him. And if he insisted upon claiming 
 to be friendly and forgiving, and sought to follow her 
 into the house, with his cunning eyes turning this way 
 and that, she would take down her father's shotgun. 
 She knew what her rights were. 
 
 ... But if he brought an officer with a search-war- 
 rant? 
 
 She swung her buckets up to the kitchen-table and 
 reached for the dipper. She heard Minturn's footsteps 
 behind her, and with the quick perceptions which had 
 been developing of late she recognized certain signs 
 of impatience in the sound. She thought rather moodily : 
 "Now he's going to say something unpleasant." She 
 anticipated him by turning around with the filled dipper 
 in her hand. "Will you have a drink?" she asked. 
 
 He regarded her petulantly: he did not offer to take 
 the dipper from her. He only said "You always say 
 you'll be right back, and then you stay away as if you'd 
 got lost or had an accident." 
 
 She tried to smile as she replied: "But you know I 
 can't stay in the house all the time!" 
 
 "No, of course. But I've got to stay in the house 
 all the time." 
 
 She regarded him musingly. She was thinking: 
 "That's a different matter." But she said nothing. 
 She continued to hold the dipper toward him. 
 
 He took it at last and thanked her. His tone denoted 
 contrition, and she realized that he wished not to seem 
 irritable and unreasonable. She reminded herself again
 
 156 ROSY 
 
 that he had reason to be unhappy and that she must 
 make allowances for him. 
 
 "I didn't mean to be gone so long this time," she 
 said graciously. "Mr. Feld wanted to talk to me about 
 something rather serious, and I couldn't get away any 
 sooner." 
 
 He seemed almost to quiver with interest. "What 
 did he have to talk about?" he asked. He spoke with 
 that hunger for news known only to those who are shut 
 out from the sources of news. 
 
 She flushed with embarrassment. "It wasn't as 
 serious as all that I " she declared. She went for the 
 coffee-pot, to fill it with water. She pretended to have 
 put Jacob Feld and what he had talked about out of 
 her mind. 
 
 But he continued to search her face intently and with 
 steadily dawning suspicion. Suddenly he exclaimed 
 "Rosy, he said something about me you know he 
 did!" 
 
 She was slightly puzzled at first. She had to read- 
 just her point of view before she could understand why 
 he should think any one would speak of him. At length 
 she said, with unmistakable emphasis: "No, he didn't!" 
 And then she gave her attention to the task of filling 
 the coffee-pot. 
 
 But he would not drop the subject. "Rosy, you 
 know very well it's not safe for me here," he said in an' 
 insistent tone. "Something is sure to get out sooner 
 or later. And I could get away if you'd help me." 
 
 "How do you mean, help you?" she asked, turning 
 to him again. 
 
 His face flushed and he averted his eyes; and in the 
 interval of silence which followed she took occasion 
 to turn his mind into a different channel, if it were pos- 
 sible to do so. 
 
 She said pleasantly: "When it gets dark to-night
 
 ROSY 157 
 
 . . . I've got a plan. Do you remember my telling you 
 about a secret cave? It's easy to get into. The rocks 
 stick out in the sides of the old well so that you can step 
 on them and climb down. And then you're in a place 
 which isn't known to a soul but me. A wonderful place. 
 If everybody from here to Pisgah looked for you they'd 
 never find you in a hundred years." 
 
 She was glad because of a faintly dawning light in 
 his eyes as if his curiosity had been aroused. She 
 continued: "When it gets dark I'll show you. It's 
 like going into a new world where there's nobody." 
 
 He began to smile faintly, as if he were a child. He 
 seemed about to say something; but just at that in- 
 stant there was an occurrence which froze the smile 
 on his lips and drove the color from his cheeks. A shrill 
 whistle had sounded out in the road. 
 
 She too was startled. "Wait!" she whispered. 
 
 She went stealthily into the front room and stood 
 cautiously back from the window, looking out. 
 
 She could see nothing, and this circumstance still 
 further alarmed her. Her pulses were pounding vio- 
 lently. The whistle had sounded immediately in front 
 of the house; yet there was nothing in sight but the 
 undisturbed verdure of the mountainside. 
 
 From farther up the road she heard a footfall ap- 
 proaching, and a moment later the ancient form of 
 Doctor Garner appeared. His coming was a mere in- 
 terruption it had nothing to do with that alarming 
 whistle, she was certain. She regarded him impatiently, 
 hoping he would speedily pass, so that the hidden drama 
 he had interrupted might perhaps reveal itself. But 
 even the harmless, irascible old doctor contributed 
 his mite to her suspicions and fears. Opposite her house 
 he turned his eyes furtively and seemed to observe her 
 window with suspicion. She contemplated him now 
 with dislike, rather than pity. He was very old, and
 
 158 ROSY 
 
 he had grown old gracelessly. He had become a little, 
 knotty parcel of petty intensities and precisions, know- 
 ing all things, heatedly resenting all differences of opin- 
 ion. He walked oddly, busily, as if he were doing a 
 sort of eccentric dance and if any one had looked after 
 him with even the faintest amusement, he would have 
 turned and bristled instantly and barked out his ani- 
 mosity. He turned again he was nearly out of sight 
 now and looked at Rosy's window in a covert, sinister 
 way, and then he was gone. 
 
 Rosy had almost forgotten the disturbing whistle. 
 She was wondering what could have happened to make 
 Nat suddenly fearful. There was so little he could really 
 hear! And she concluded that the mere fact of being 
 in the dark as he was explained any number and kind 
 of suspicions. Perhaps it was not strange that he be- 
 lieved his affairs might come to a fatal climax at almost 
 any time. 
 
 There was silence out in the road and then a repeti- 
 tion of that shrill and ominous whistle. But almost 
 immediately Rosy was smiling, her fears dispelled. 
 One of the bench boys emerged from a tangle of grape- 
 vines up on the slope. It was quite obvious that he 
 had been imagining himself a Redskin or a bandit. He 
 came tumbling down into the road. He lifted one foot 
 and hopped from one stone to another, maintaining 
 his balance only at the cost of much facial contortion. 
 He was a Redskin no more, but only a lonely little boy, 
 wondering where all the other boys had gone a comic 
 picture in a kindly world. 
 
 Rosy watched him until he disappeared down the 
 road. She heard him whistle again, faintly, in the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 "I'm beginning to imagine things," she thought. 
 "No one is going to harm me."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 As dusk fell that evening Rosy made many a trip 
 to her front window and looked out, to see that not too 
 much daylight remained for the adventure in hand, 
 to be sure there was no one on the road. Her forebod- 
 ings had been almost wholly succeeded by a delicious 
 excitement. It was as if she were playing a game at 
 which she was more skilled than others who played it. 
 She seemed more like a girl and less like a woman than 
 she had seemed for days. 
 
 At last, after a specially intense vigil at the window 
 she turned decisively. She was exceedingly eager. 
 "We'll try it now," she said. And she led the way hur- 
 riedly, noiselessly, through the house and out the back 
 way. 
 
 She crossed a copselike space where peach-boughs 
 veiled her from the road if there had been any one 
 on the road to see her. " Come on !" she called sharply. 
 She paused before the wreck of a well and looked down. 
 She waited only long enough to be sure that Minturn 
 was coming, and then she set foot upon a projecting 
 rock. An instant later she had disappeared. 
 
 The rough sides of the well were easy of descent at 
 least for her. The excavation was shallow, less than 
 eight feet in depth. A large cavity opened from one 
 side, at the base. Two natural stone steps led the way 
 into an invisible, unknown region. And into this un- 
 known region Rosy vanished. 
 
 She stood and waited until he joined her there; and 
 even when she knew that he had falteringly approached 
 
 159
 
 160 ROSY 
 
 and was standing beside her, she did not speak. The 
 magic spell of the place was upon her. They were in 
 a region of shadows and gloom, relieved by an immense 
 opening in the face of the mountain a hundred feet dis- 
 tant. Through that opening a patch of sky was visible : 
 still blue with the remnant of day and faintly aglow 
 with the hues of sunset. 
 
 He put forth a hand and took hers and held it, and 
 she did not resist him. She seemed scarcely aware of 
 what he had done. 
 
 He was oppressed by the subterranean gloom and 
 solitude, while she was moved by the remembrance of 
 childish dreams. To him the obscure, yawning recesses 
 were sinister; to her the very spell of the place sprang 
 from its vagueness. 
 
 While they stood there in silence the area of open 
 sky, with its frame of jagged outlines, grew dim, as if 
 a light curtain had been let down. The sun had set, 
 the night was steadily coming on. 
 
 She knew that he was drawing her by the hand, and 
 a moment later the spell had deserted her. She was 
 climbing the wall of the old well again, and peach-boughs 
 were hanging low above her. There was a different 
 feeling in the air. A pleasant odor many pleasant 
 odors filled her nostrils; it was very warm. A dis- 
 turbed bird flew overhead, calling out softly. 
 
 Like two conspirators they hurried back into the 
 house. 
 
 They did not speak of their sensations, received from 
 that dark cavern. She was recalling a childhood which 
 seemed unwittingly to have slipped away from her, 
 never to return. She was scarcely aware of the presence 
 of a companion. And he gave himself over to brooding 
 melancholy. 
 
 She took up her sewing, after it came time to make
 
 ROSY 161 
 
 a light, and he pretended to read; and so they sat, 
 vaguely estranged from each other, until bedtime. Then 
 he ascended his ladder without a word of good night. 
 
 Morning brought to each a more normal condition. 
 Each recalled the silent visit of the night before as if 
 it were a dream, or as if it were a thing to dread. At 
 the breakfast-table he put down his coffee cup abruptly 
 and said, with an attempt at a smile: "The next thing 
 I know you'll be trying to keep me down in that dismal 
 hole night and day." 
 
 She smiled almost imperceptibly when he spoke of 
 the cavern in such terms. "I don't want anybody to 
 find you that's all," she said. "I wanted you to know 
 about it, so you can hide when you have to. For my 
 part I shouldn't mind if I had to stay there for days 
 at a time. I only want you to go there if anybody comes 
 to look for you, I mean." 
 
 Unconsciously she had assumed the attitude of the 
 menaced one, while he had begun to make difficulties 
 where there need have been none. It would have seemed 
 that he no longer cared very much about remaining 
 in concealment, while she planned more earnestly than 
 ever to protect him and indirectly, perhaps, herself. 
 
 She continued, more lightly: "And I don't see much 
 difference between climbing down an old well, into a 
 cavern, and scrambling up a ladder into an attic, when- 
 ever I have a caller." She smiled reminiscently. "If 
 you could see yourself climbing up that ladder you might 
 prefer to hide in the cavern once in a while. Sometimes 
 it's all I can do to keep from laughing when you go up 
 that ladder, like a jumping-jack. It's really ridiculous. 
 Sometimes I expect them to say, when they come in, 
 'What are you laughing at, Rosy?' Though of course 
 I don't laugh, really."
 
 162 ROSY 
 
 He flushed dully and averted his eyes. "It must be 
 very amusing/' he said. 
 
 "No, it isn't," she declared. "I didn't mean that. 
 All I meant was that you mustn't be so hard to please. 
 There are others besides yourself who have got to be 
 considered. What do you suppose your father would 
 think if you were found here, and the officers were to 
 come to arrest you?" She sought to choose her next 
 words tactfully: "And how would it look for me? You 
 ought to remember that." 
 
 He averted his eyes again. "I think that's what you 
 think of most of all," he said, "how it would look for 
 you. If you didn't think so much of yourself you'd 
 do as I want you to and get away from here. If we were 
 married and living away off somewhere, quietly, nobody 
 would bother us." As if in answer to a question in his 
 own mind he added: "I'd write to my father and he'd 
 help us. With money, I mean." 
 
 Her only reply was: "I'm not thinking only of my- 
 self. I'm thinking of us both. Of everybody. And 
 that's what I want you to do." 
 
 She became absorbed in her own fancies for a time. 
 She seemed to have forgotten his presence. She was 
 thinking how her childish dreams had endowed the hidden 
 cavern with a magic charm, and how it might now be 
 made the scene of a great adventure. But this would 
 be difficult, because she was dealing with one who did 
 not know what make-believe was, and who liked to 
 make things worse than they were, instead of better. 
 
 But presently her eyes, gazing at nothing, became 
 aglow with happiness and wonder. 
 
 "What are you thinking about now?" he demanded 
 petulantly. 
 
 She aroused herself. "Nothing," she said. She had 
 really been thinking of that letter she had received from
 
 ROSY 163 
 
 France. In her mind she was reading it over again. It 
 was the first letter of its kind she had ever received. 
 It was a love-letter, expressing the kind of love she had 
 often dreamed of. It was the letter of one who, though 
 perils loomed before him, could think of her with tender- 
 ness and solicitude and gratitude who seemed to for- 
 get himself completely. 
 
 She wished the Feld girls had not known about her 
 receiving that letter. Hilda had been whispering it 
 about that she had had a letter from Nat Minturn; 
 and it was now no longer a secret. She was being asked 
 occasionally what was in the letter, and there were those 
 who had even asked to read it. They seemed to think 
 that a letter from a soldier ought to be considered 
 common property. But she would never show that 
 letter. A thousand times, no ! 
 
 She assumed a brisk manner. "We mustn't be 
 foolish," she said. "We've both got to do our part and 
 make the best of things." 
 
 She got up and began to clear the breakfast things 
 away. She was unnecessarily noisy as she put the dishes 
 in a pan and poured the hot water over them. It might 
 have seemed that Minturn's presence no longer had 
 power either to rejoice or to trouble her. 
 
 ... It was well along toward noon when she saw 
 a strange vehicle moving along the bench road toward 
 her. She hid behind the curtain and looked out. A 
 carriage approached slowly and in it she saw the gay 
 colors of a woman's dress. She continued to look in- 
 tently, and presently her attitude and bearing under- 
 went a curious change. 
 
 She called back into the room: "I think somebody 
 is coming here." She turned and glanced at him 
 sharply, and then at the ladder. 
 
 "Do you have to let them in?" he asked.
 
 164 ROSY 
 
 She was looking out of the window again. "They're 
 stopping they're coming in," she said. She moved 
 toward the door, her intention being unmistakable. 
 She was prepared to open the door; and when she turned 
 for a final survey of the room it was empty. 
 
 It was Fanny and Evelyn Minturn; and now Rosy 
 opened the door and stood on the threshold, looking 
 at her visitors with eyes which were intently observant, 
 almost coldly inquiring. She was thinking: "How 
 can they have the face to come to see me, after the way 
 they've snubbed me?" But almost instantly resent- 
 ment changed to a mischievous curiosity. They were 
 so obviously ill at ease, now that they were placed in 
 a disadvantageous position; they were so obviously 
 little, forceless creatures. They were still looking about 
 them, as if they were not sure they were on the right 
 road. 
 
 When they saw Rosy in the doorway their color began 
 to come and go, and they tried almost piteously to hold 
 their eyes upon hers. They looked at each other as if 
 each were saying : "You must speak to her first ! " They 
 stood outside the door as if each feared to enter until 
 the other had done so; yet Rosy observed that even 
 in their embarrassment they found time to shoot little 
 furtive glances about them as if they had come to a 
 place of mystery, and as if each wished to have as much 
 ground as the other to speak scornfully of Rosy and 
 her home, after they went away. 
 
 "Well, Fanny," said Rosy at length, in a dry tone, 
 "suppose you come in first." This was meant as an 
 interpretation of their agitated glances at each other. 
 
 "How do you do, Rosy?" began Fanny. "Yes, we're 
 both coming in, right away. We were just stopping 
 to notice how perfectly lovely everything is up here." 
 
 Rosy reflected: "She doesn't want to admit that 
 she's uneasy." She said aloud: "Yes, it is lovely
 
 ROSY 165 
 
 though I don't know as it is as grand here as it is on 
 the summit." She withdrew into the room, followed 
 by the two visitors, Fanny in the lead. 
 
 Inside the room the sisters turned toward each other 
 as if each wished to remind the other of something they 
 had agreed upon; and then both turned to Rosy. "It 
 was you, up on the summit the other evening," said 
 both almost simultaneously. 
 
 "Yes," said Rosy, "I was there. I tried to catch 
 your eye, but you were both enjoying the sunset. Wasn't 
 it wonderful?" She thought: "I ought not to let them 
 get away with it so easy, but it doesn't make any dif- 
 ference." 
 
 "We spoke of it afterward," said Fanny. "We both 
 thought it must have been you. But you grow so, 
 Rosy!" 
 
 "And get prettier all the time," added Evelyn. 
 "That's what we both said after we went home." 
 
 Rosy smiled inscrutably and looked into their eyes 
 without flinching. She said to herself: "They have 
 heard about my getting a letter. That is why they 
 have come." She was happy to think that she could 
 be quite at ease with them, without saying a word, while 
 they tried so hopelessly to tide over a bad moment by 
 talking foolishly. 
 
 They could not endure Rosy's silence and the faintly 
 taunting light in her eyes. It was Evelyn who sought 
 relief by saying, with entirely spurious warmth and 
 gayety: "We think it's wonderful how well you do, 
 Rosy living all by yourself and doing everything. We 
 both think so." She glanced at Fanny with an expres- 
 sion which said plainly: "Now you think of something 
 to say next." But it seemed that Fanny was unable 
 to rise to the occasion, and a rather pathetic silence 
 fell upon both the sisters. 
 
 Rosy would have pitied them but for the fact that
 
 166 ROSY 
 
 she could not help seeing how they kept trying all the 
 time to spy out things in a furtive, timid way. Their 
 glances kept travelling constantly: out into the lean-to, 
 up the ladder, and even under the bed. She could not 
 help thinking to herself: "They are like cats, exactly. 
 I think in secret they must have a passion for catching 
 mice." 
 
 It seemed to her that they would remain indefinitely, 
 until they could summon up courage enough to ask 
 about the letter that had come from France, or until 
 they could stumble upon the subject by chance. She 
 was eager to have them go away, and it seemed best 
 to meet them more than half-way on the subject of the 
 letter. 
 
 She asked, as if she had just chanced to remember 
 it: "Did you know that I'd got a letter?" 
 
 They flushed a little and glanced at each other, and 
 it was plain that their prearranged system of inquiry 
 had been made to collapse because of this pointed ques- 
 tion. They blundered. Fanny cried "Oh, did you?" 
 and at the very same time Evelyn began: "Yes, we'd 
 heard She broke off in confusion, and then they 
 looked at each other accusingly, as two cooks might 
 do if each were to discover that the other had put salt 
 into the broth. 
 
 Rosy lifted her glance and kept it suspended over 
 their heads, while she smiled with quiet malice. "I 
 did," she said. "Have you had one?" 
 
 They recovered themselves quickly. "You mean 
 from Nat," said Fanny. "No, we haven't. You know 
 what brothers are like. They never write to their sisters. 
 It's ever so much more interesting, it seems, to write 
 to to somebody else's sister!" They both laughed 
 at this: happily, as if they were getting along even better 
 than they had hoped to do.
 
 ROSY 167 
 
 "I suppose that's true," said Rosy dryly; and she 
 sat with her hands folded idly, and with that vague 
 twinkle in her lifted eyes. 
 
 They did not ask to see the letter. It was to be sup- 
 posed that if Nat had written to Rosy, before he had 
 written to any one else, it would have been a love-letter. 
 But Evelyn, after a cautiously inquiring glance at Fanny, 
 ventured to say "We didn't know that you knew Nat 
 as well as as that, Rosy. It was the most delightful 
 surprise to us." 
 
 "Yes, indeed!" echoed Fanny. 
 
 "Yes, I know your brother quite well," said Rosy; 
 and a kind of rippling light seemed to play upon her 
 features. "You know he used often to come up here 
 to the bench to play. We seem to have grown up to- 
 gether. There were a good many of us: we used to 
 have such good times. I can't think why you never 
 came." She glanced from one to the other with an air 
 of candor; but she was thinking "They'd have had 
 lots more fun if they hadn't thought they were too good 
 for other people." 
 
 "I'm not sure we knew," said Fanny. "Who all 
 was it besides you and Nat?" 
 
 Rosy tried to remember. "There was Charley Feld 
 and the Feld girls," she said. She was about to add 
 that there had been William Springer; but she decided 
 not to mention the Springer boy. No one thought highly 
 of the Springers now; and even when they had been 
 children they had tried to run away from William 
 Springer when they went roaming about the mountain. 
 She added: "And there was Zeb Nanny. ..." She 
 paused as if the names of the others did not come 
 readily, or as if they did not matter. 
 
 "Poor Zeb!" said Evelyn. She tried to speak pen- 
 sively; but it was plain that both the sisters had be-
 
 168 ROSY 
 
 come much more alert with the mention of Zeb Nanny's 
 name. Indeed, their manner had altered in such a way 
 that Rosy looked at them with a new dawning sus- 
 picion. 
 
 Fanny remarked, with an attempt at a casual tone, 
 "I suppose he was a right good boy, when he was little." 
 
 "I always liked him," said Rosy dryly. She added: 
 "I don't know anything against him yet. He never 
 had any trouble with anybody. That is, nobody but 
 old man Lott." 
 
 She knew that the sisters were now stealing glances 
 at each other, but she pretended not to notice. 
 
 "It's very exciting," said Evelyn, as if she had re- 
 ceived her cue from Fanny. "Some people say he's 
 not far away, for all they can't find him. You hear 
 the strangest things !" 
 
 "Where do they think he is?" asked Rosy. She 
 seemed prepared to receive their answer with an en- 
 tirely open mind. 
 
 They were both painfully confused. "Of course, 
 nobody pretends to know," said Fanny. "You know 
 how people talk!" 
 
 "I don't suppose they know anything about it," said 
 Rosy. "Zeb's got more friends than old man Lott, 
 ten to one and more sense, too. Whatever he tries 
 to do he'll do." 
 
 Evelyn ventured a breathless "Why, Rosy!" But 
 Rosy only went on, speaking more calmly: "I'd wish 
 him good luck as long as nobody but old Lott accused 
 him." 
 
 The sisters looked at each other with the germ of a 
 small, firm resolution in their eyes. They did not look 
 at Rosy for a moment; but Evelyn found courage to 
 say: "I don't think you ought to speak of him that way, 
 Rosy and him a convict and all. If you're such a good
 
 ROSY 169 
 
 friend to Nat, I wonder what he'd think if he knew you 
 spoke so well of Zeb ? " 
 
 "I hadn't thought," replied Rosy, "but I'd say the 
 same thing if Nat were sitting in that chair you're in 
 instead of you. I'm only telling the truth." 
 
 They went away before long; and from the road, 
 in the distance, they looked back curiously and warily 
 at Rosy's house. 
 
 Peering through an opening between the curtains 
 Rosy watched them do so; and a faint smile remained 
 on her lips.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 TRAVELLERS and strangers who passed the Minturn 
 home were pretty likely to pause for a second glance 
 at the big frame house, with its sentinel pines and oaks 
 about it, and realize that it expressed the aspirations 
 and ambitions of a man who held himself superior to 
 his neighbors. 
 
 To the Pisgah mind, attuned to local standards of 
 elegance and art, it seemed a very impressive structure 
 indeed, with its sharply pitched gables and shiny light- 
 ning-rods and extensive scrollwork, extending along 
 the eaves and embellishing the porches. To pilots steer- 
 ing their boats from a great distance up the river one 
 smartly painted white gable-end was as a beacon by 
 day; and at night the same pilots could sight the lighted 
 windows from points which looked, otherwise, upon a 
 region of vast, dark expanses. 
 
 Rufus Minturn and his family were proud of their 
 home, placidly unaware of any higher standards of taste 
 according to which their house would have seemed only 
 cheaply smug, now that it was comparatively new, and 
 certain to deteriorate into shabbiness rather than pic- 
 turesqueness when it became old. 
 
 It stood near one of the boundary-lines of the Min- 
 turn plantation: a tract of some twelve hundred acres 
 in extent, and of almost unsurpassable richness. The 
 land had come to Rufus Minturn from his father a 
 Northerner of the days of carpet-bag government, who 
 had made his appearance in Arkansas at a time when 
 land values were at a low ebb by reason of the section's 
 
 170
 
 ROSY 171 
 
 generally bankrupt condition, and the passing of an 
 era of slave-labor which had left both the will and the 
 ability to cultivate the land sadly diminished and in 
 many instances practically destroyed. It was a choice 
 tract in every way: bottom land, as it was called, yet 
 protected from overflow during high stages in the river 
 by a chain of promontories, scarcely more than immense 
 hummocks, which extended along the river's edge. 
 
 Half a mile down the road which bordered the plan- 
 tation the overseer, Pemberton, had his dwelling-place; 
 and a little farther on a group of primitive structures 
 housed the men and women all negroes who tilled 
 the Minturn acres. Near their huts the community 
 store stood; and not far from the store the blacksmith- 
 shop was situated. 
 
 For the rest there was an extensive vista of flat acres 
 where the crop almost exclusively of cotton was 
 cultivated. This was bisected again and again by roads 
 or trails which were needed to facilitate the movements 
 of teams or the conveying of the staple from point to 
 point: and in the midst of the plantation a cotton-gin 
 had its place. 
 
 In years past the estate had possessed one physical 
 defect or it had seemed to do so. Near one of its mar- 
 gins the bottom loam merged into sand and stony soil; 
 and out of this arose, abruptly and quite isolated, an 
 immense hill. But in the course of time Rufus Minturn 
 had discovered that this hill was a solid mass of granite, 
 under a thin substratum of soil; and on an occasion 
 when he needed stone for building purposes he hit upon 
 the idea of obtaining the needed material from the granite 
 mass which arose like a wall at the confines of his own 
 estate. 
 
 The experiment had proved so satisfactory in every 
 way that he had immediately added the profession of
 
 172 ROSY 
 
 quarryman to that of planter. By a plan which in- 
 volved no risk of loss he engaged a quarry foreman 
 the plan was based upon a percentage division of profits 
 and became known throughout a considerable terri- 
 tory as a quarryman. On occasion he sold rock to the 
 government, which was putting in a series of dikes above 
 Pisgah to keep the erratic river current in its channel; 
 and others who needed certain kinds of building material 
 found it just a little cheaper to deal with the Minturn 
 quarries than to buy the necessary implements and do 
 quarrying on their own account farther away among 
 the mountains. 
 
 According to the local standards Minturn was a 
 wealthy man; and year after year his wealth increased. 
 He hoarded what he had; he knew how to invest his 
 wealth conservatively, and his personal needs were 
 few. 
 
 Yet the general effect of much seeming good fortune 
 had been to establish a barrier between the family and 
 all who knew them. The Minturns were said to be per- 
 sons without generous impulses, without any interest 
 in the progress of the community, without the slightest 
 kindly thought for those who were needy or unfortunate 
 without regard for those who would have asked noth- 
 ing from them but courteous friendliness. 
 
 Rufus Minturn derived his chief pleasure if it could 
 have been called pleasure from the knowledge that 
 he was dependent upon no one, while many were de- 
 pendent upon him. His attitude toward his tenants 
 was one of unruffled tyranny. He spent much of his 
 time in a light runabout which could be seen here and 
 there about his estate: in the cotton-fields in summer, 
 or at the store which his tenants patronized and main- 
 tained by a credit system which was wholly to their 
 disadvantage; about the cotton-gin hi the fall or during
 
 ttOSY 173 
 
 the winter; before the doors of his tenants when he 
 could make occasion to speak to them critically or warn- 
 ingly; in the vicinity of his quarries; or on the road 
 to Pisgah, or on the streets of Pisgah, where he was 
 viewed with a certain respect which seemed to satisfy 
 every craving of his nature. 
 
 He was served like a shadow by his overseer, Pember- 
 ton. The relationship between the two was almost 
 like that of guilty conspirators. They had little to say 
 to each other. They spoke in low tones, apart. They 
 understood each other perfectly. 
 
 Minturn's only son, Nat, had learned the one lesson 
 which was required of him: an unfailing humility in 
 the presence of his father. He had gone to school in 
 a rather listless fashion; he enjoyed his leisure hours 
 in much the same spirit. He had worked at desultory 
 tasks about the plantation when his father had found 
 them for him to do. He craved friendship and was re- 
 garded rather more highly than the other members of 
 the family. 
 
 It was said of him that he lacked incentive as any 
 youth in his place might have done, with broad acres 
 waiting to become his own when his father died. There 
 was a belief that he might have been a very good sort 
 of young fellow if he had been placed as other boys were. 
 He was said to "take after his mother," and to bear 
 slight resemblance to his father or to his sisters. 
 
 The Minturn girls excited pity rather than any other 
 emotion. They were rather pretty girls but in a spare, 
 bloodless fashion which presaged an early departure of 
 youth and comeliness. Without being indolent, they 
 lacked industry of any sort. They would have thought 
 it mean to engage in household duties though their 
 mother was always overburdened. They thought scorn- 
 fully of the accomplishments which were recommended
 
 174 ROSY 
 
 to other young ladies. Why should they spend hours 
 at the piano, playing tiresome exercises ? Or why should 
 they seek to win renown for scholarship or for skill 
 at certain homely things: making preserves, for ex- 
 ample, or fancy work, or the cultivation of flowers? 
 Such things were all right for other girls girls who 
 had to think about making a good impression on the 
 men they might need sooner or later as husbands. As 
 for themselves, they need not think of placing such offer- 
 ings at the feet of possible suitors. In their cases the 
 suitors would have to supply all the recommendations. 
 Their father was rich, and some day his wealth would be 
 theirs. 
 
 In their hearts they believed that the young men 
 about them were not their equals. Perhaps they thought 
 vaguely that the time would come when they would 
 make brilliant matches with men from a distance. But 
 they were in no hurry for this time to come. They lacked 
 ability to discriminate among the young men of their 
 acquaintance to perceive those undeveloped merits 
 which foreshadow excellent careers. They carried their 
 heads high when they passed the young men of their 
 own and adjacent neighborhoods and then turned 
 about furtively, not from womanly desire, but from 
 curiosity to see how their snubs had been received. 
 
 It was widely predicted that they would remain un- 
 married and wither away into faded unloveliness, and 
 ride about the plantation as their father had done, and 
 speak tyrannically to the tenants, and find fault with 
 everything. Still, they would be rich; and this circum- 
 stance gave them, in the eyes of their neighbors, a cer- 
 tain interest. 
 
 Shortly before sunset on the day of the Minturn 
 girls' visit to Rosy Woodridge, Rufus Minturn emerged
 
 ROSY 175 
 
 from his front door and came out upon the long veranda 
 which extended the full width of the house. Various 
 rustic chairs were at hand and he seemed for a moment 
 to be deciding where he should sit. But with the rest- 
 lessness of an avaricious man he changed his mind ab- 
 ruptly and walked away to the end of the veranda, where 
 he could look out over his possessions. 
 
 The day's work was done save in the far-away region 
 of the quarries, where a few charges of dynamite re- 
 mained to be exploded. The muffled reports filled the 
 quiet earth with shuddering vibrations and then died 
 away. From various points about the plantation negroes 
 were wending their way toward their huts, from which 
 ascending spirals of smoke proclaimed that suppers 
 were being prepared. There were no sounds of singing 
 or rejoicing: the Minturn negroes were taught early 
 in their periods of tenure not to be demonstrative. If 
 they were ever happy they concealed the fact per- 
 haps from fear that their burdens might be multiplied. 
 
 Far and near the cotton bolls were beginning to burst, 
 so that the prospect from where Minturn stood was of 
 finely contrasting colors : the snowy white of the cotton, 
 the vivid green of the leaves, the burnished hues of the 
 stalks, and the sombre earth. Through a long series 
 of depressions a glimpse of the river could be caught 
 and this was like a flame from the setting sun. 
 
 Whatever half-remembered thought he had had in 
 mind was put aside finally and he recrossed the veranda 
 and adjusted one of the porch chairs to his liking and 
 sat down. It was his favorite habit to sit here late in 
 the afternoon, after he had assiduously covered a score 
 or more of miles during the day. He liked to be seen 
 sitting in the shade by those who toiled along the road 
 and felt the oppressive heat of the sun, and who per- 
 haps carried invisible burdens which darkened the sky
 
 176 ROSY 
 
 for them. He felt that he presented an enviable and 
 model picture as he sat at ease, his work intelligently 
 done; and it gratified him when any one turned in from 
 the road to speak to him though he usually answered 
 back briefly and reservedly. He liked to think that his 
 house wore a fine old-fashioned air of hospitality though 
 he rarely invited any one into it, and it was known that 
 on more than one occasion when visitors had come on 
 business he had kept his own supper or dinner waiting 
 rather than ask a neighbor to sit at his table. 
 
 Presently, as if something were wanting to a complete 
 sense of proprietorship, he called out (perhaps he had 
 heard Mrs. Minturn stirring in the room close by): 
 *' Whereabouts are the girls, ma?" 
 
 Mrs. Minturn appeared in the doorway. "What 
 did you say?" she inquired. 
 
 "The girls where are they?" 
 
 "They went driving. They wanted to do some shop- 
 ping. They ought to be home before long." 
 
 He had not turned to look at her. Instead he sat 
 contemptuously regarding a certain innovation in the 
 side-yard: the girls had been laying out a tennis-court. 
 He thought it all nonsense; yet he derived a certain 
 satisfaction from the thought that his girls were the 
 only girls anywhere about Pisgah who had as yet taken 
 any stock in what he supposed was an elegant and 
 fashionable game. Then he looked up because he had 
 heard the gate click; and he saw Tom Lott turning 
 away from the gate and approaching him. 
 
 Lott drew near and paused, resting one foot on the 
 bottom step of the veranda. He removed his hat and 
 wiped the sweat from his forehead. He did not explain 
 why he had called. This would have been contrary to 
 his nature. He only saluted Minturn and then looked 
 away toward the monotonous vista of cotton lands,
 
 ROSY 177 
 
 their crop thriving under a heat which would have 
 caused growing corn to shrivel and die. 
 
 "Looks like a good year," he said, as he nodded 
 toward the distant cotton-fields. 
 
 Minturn smiled grimly; and in a moment he jerked 
 his thumb toward a chair near him. "Sit down," he 
 said. 
 
 The bonds which united the two men were obscure 
 and intangible: perhaps they were based wholly upon 
 the laws of propinquity for Lott was Minturn's nearest 
 neighbor. There was silence for a moment after Lott 
 had climbed the veranda steps and taken a chair. He 
 turned his keen, lean face back the way he had come: 
 back to his own home and the farm of Robert Nanny. 
 There was a gleam of malevolent interest in his shrewd 
 black eyes, which were precisely suited to his face, with 
 its thin, shaven lips and the harsh gray beard which 
 covered his chin sparsely. 
 
 "That poor fool Nanny," he presently began. "It's 
 strange the way he's got, pottering about his place. 
 He's at it now. He goes mooning about as if he thought 
 he might find buried treasure somewhere. He's like 
 a lunatic: he'll look at a bare spot on the ground with 
 the darnedest expression as a man might look at his 
 wife the first time he ever saw her asleep. As if she 
 was better looking than he thought she was, and as 
 if he thought she might wake up any minute and maybe 
 give him a kiss, or sing him a song, or bake him a cake." 
 
 Minturn seemed to regard this as sorry nonsense. 
 After all, what did Lott possess, that he should hold 
 any man in contempt ? He made no reply. His glance 
 was bent in the general direction of Nanny's house, 
 it is true: but he was watching a moving object on the 
 valley road. It was a carriage; and presently he knew 
 that his daughters were in it.
 
 178 ROSY 
 
 Lott was plainly interested in the arrival of the 
 daughters, too. Both men looked at the arriving car- 
 riage without speaking. 
 
 Evelyn was driving; and Fanny got out to open the 
 larger gate. The carriage passed beyond the unfinished 
 tennis-court and disappeared around the house. 
 
 Lott resumed: "And his jailbird son ... it seems 
 strange they can't find him anywhere." 
 
 "Maybe they haven't tried very hard," said Min- 
 turn. 
 
 But the other said with emphasis: "Yes, they have. 
 It's not that. He's got clever friends. There's one of 
 them . . . she might tell a good deal if she wanted to. 
 I mean old Sam Woodridge's girl. She's been to see 
 Nanny three or four times. And you can see there's a 
 secret between them." 
 
 Minturn had been looking at him with cold aloofness. 
 He was too busy a man to care very much about gossip. 
 If young Nanny ever came back he would do his part 
 in having him put safely away, of course. A man could 
 not run the risk of having his own horses stolen. But 
 the suggestion that a girl might be shielding him touched 
 his imagination. It would be an extraordinary situa- 
 tion: a young girl befriending a convict who had got 
 free, somehow, and who was defying the authorities. 
 
 "I'm going to drive up the mountain some day and 
 have a look around," added Lott. He turned toward 
 Minturn and caught a gleam of amused interest in his 
 eyes. He added: "I'll stop by and see if you've got 
 time to go too." And then, with the thought that it 
 might be well for Mm to belittle the adventure, from his 
 own point of view, he added: "It'll do you good to get 
 away for once. Everybody goes up the mountain once 
 in a while everybody but you. I'll stop and let you 
 know."
 
 ROSY 179 
 
 The girls came out on the porch now, and Evelyn 
 began: "There's a buckle that won't work, pa. We 
 couldn't get the harness off. And ma hasn't got time 
 now. Will you go?" 
 
 They both/ sat down close to Lott after their father 
 had gone. They both looked at the old man with a 
 certain significance. In truth, it was he who had sug- 
 gested that they go and visit Rosy, and keep on the 
 alert for mysterious sights and sounds. 
 
 "Did you go?" he asked. 
 
 They both replied together, scarcely above a whisper: 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "And did you see anything?" 
 
 They did not like to confess that their visit had been 
 a failure. "She behaved very mysteriously, I must 
 say," said Evelyn. 
 
 "That's precisely what I thought too very mys- 
 teriously," said Fanny. 
 
 There was no time for either of them to speak again. 
 Minturn returned, grumbling because there was noth- 
 ing to do which the girls ought not to have been able 
 to do themselves; and a moment later Pemberton, the 
 overseer, came up the walk. 
 
 Without a word he handed a note to Minturn; and 
 Minturn opened it with a certain indifference. It was 
 a note from one of the older tenants, a negro named 
 Washburn, who was trying to maintain his oldest son 
 at Tuskegee. In the note he asked for an increase in 
 credit for the remainder of the year, explaining that his 
 needs would be fewer for the next year. The appeal 
 was addressed to the overseer. 
 
 Minturn seemed only to glance at the note. His lips 
 became thinner and harder, and almost immediately 
 he handed the note back to Pemberton. He shook his 
 head once and that was his reply.
 
 i8o ROSY 
 
 The group on the veranda remained silent even after 
 the overseer had gone away; and in a few minutes Lott 
 aroused himself and took his leave. He was slightly 
 disappointed because the girls had found nothing more 
 definite to report. He consoled himself with the re- 
 minder that young girls could not be expected to be 
 very observant, after all, and that he should probably 
 be much more successful when he made the projected 
 journey up to Moab. 
 
 After he was gone Minturn turned to the girls and 
 asked abruptly: "How old is that Woodridge girl up 
 on Moab?" 
 
 They were greatly perturbed. But Evelyn managed 
 to say: "She's seventeen, pa." 
 
 "No, eighteen," said Fanny. 
 
 "That's right," admitted Evelyn. "Yes, eighteen." 
 
 They stole swift glances at their father, who said no 
 more, but who seemed to be pondering.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IT was only two days later when Lott and Minturn 
 drove up the mountain road. They reached the bench 
 shortly before four o'clock; and after a brief consulta- 
 tion they alighted and led their horse a little way off 
 the road. 
 
 Jacob Feld saw them, before they could have known 
 that their arrival had been noted. There was something 
 of mystery in their manner, he thought; and his ex- 
 pression became grave, and then determined. It was 
 not that he noted the absence of any geniality in their 
 bearing. Such a quality was not to be expected from 
 either of the two men from the valley. But already they 
 were putting their heads together like conspirators as 
 if they were unwilling to speak above a whisper. And 
 what business had either man on Moab? Their work 
 all lay in other directions; and he had never heard of 
 either of them going anywhere for pleasure alone. 
 
 He pretended to pay no attention to them though 
 it seemed improbable that they had seen him and 
 sauntered down to the road and walked away in a direc- 
 tion opposite from them. His face was turned toward 
 Rosy's house. 
 
 He seemed to be taking in the glories of the waning 
 afternoon; yet it might have been observed that he 
 walked with a certain purposefulness, and not without 
 a measure of haste. 
 
 Rosy, wearing a pair of gloves which had been her 
 father's, and a sunbonnet which had been her mother's, 
 was working in the garden patch at the side of the house; 
 and she heard him as he approached, and straightened 
 
 181
 
 182 ROSY 
 
 up and leaned on her hoe. Her face bloomed from health 
 and exertion, and her complexion was softer and clearer 
 because of the moisture which glistened under her eyes 
 and on her forehead. Yet an expression of vague alarm 
 leaped into her eyes when she saw Feld approaching. 
 There was something strangely dogged and serious in 
 his mien. 
 
 She was not mistaken in surmising that something 
 quite out of the ordinary had induced him to come to 
 see her. She went to the gate to receive his message, 
 quite as she would have done if she had gone to accept 
 some tangible gift which he carried in his hand. These 
 two knew each other well better in certain essential 
 ways than Feld and either of his daughters knew each 
 other. 
 
 "It's old Lott," he began, with a discreet effect of 
 not wishing to turn his head, and as if his words must 
 convey a definite meaning to her. "And Minturn. 
 They're down the road, putting their heads together. 
 I thought I'd better let you know." 
 
 She did not move her head. She managed to glance 
 with a casual air down the road. She could see no one. 
 "Yes, indeed," she said with unaffected gratitude, "I'm 
 glad you did. And now Mr. Feld ... if you'll just 
 go on, as if you were out for a walk around the bench. 
 If they were to guess that you had come to give me warn- 
 ing. ..." She was asking herself: "How does he know 
 that that I need to be warned ? What does he know ? " 
 
 He read the question in her eyes. "Never mind, 
 Rosy," he said hurriedly. "I saw Zeb's horse here be- 
 fore your house the night of the storm. That's all I 
 know." He frowned in perplexity. "I don't like to 
 leave you alone," he went on. "If old Lott thought 
 there was no one to take your part? ..." He looked 
 at her uneasily.
 
 ROSY 183 
 
 Her eyes began to blaze. "Leave him to me," she 
 said decisively. "It's better for you not to be here 
 much better." She listened, startled. "I hear some 
 one on the road," she whispered. "Please go!" 
 
 He turned away reluctantly, but he went hurriedly, 
 nevertheless; and he was around a bend in the road 
 before any one save Rosy had seen him. 
 
 She returned to her work in the garden, and she pre- 
 tended not to hear immediately when two pedestrians 
 turned off the road and approached her. Then she looked 
 up with a start and bent her frowning gaze on Lott and 
 Minturn. 
 
 Minturn was looking about him with an effect of being 
 there only in a casual way; but old Lott regarded her 
 shrewdly, unsmilingly, and looked over her head sharply 
 toward the premises in general, and toward the house. 
 He spoke to her at length after he had made her furious 
 by his deliberation and the air of confident authority 
 he wore. 
 
 "Afternoon, Rosy!" he said. "Doing a little gar- 
 dening?" 
 
 She dropped her hoe and removed her gloves. She 
 seemed to be inspecting her hands thoughtfully; and 
 then she said sharply: "What do you want, Mr. Lott?" 
 She was now looking at him relentlessly. 
 
 He smiled icily. "Is that the way you receive visi- 
 tors?" he asked. 
 
 "It's the way I receive you," she retorted. 
 
 He set his cunning to work. "Why?" he inquired 
 mildly. "So far as I know there's no reason why you 
 shouldn't be as civil to me as to anybody else. Why?" 
 
 "I have my reasons," said Rosy. "I don't want to 
 talk to you that's all." She feared she had blundered 
 by showing that she disliked him. What specific reason 
 could she have given if she had been required to give
 
 i8 4 ROSY 
 
 one? Yet she felt sure that if she had dissembled he 
 would have dared immediately to become domineering, 
 or that he would have pretended not to see that there 
 were limits to his rights. No, she had adopted precisely 
 the right course. She turned away with no further word 
 of explanation and went into the house. Once she looked 
 back over her shoulder, her eyes flashing unfriendliness 
 and defiance. 
 
 She heard Lett's unmusical laugh; and then she knew 
 that he and Minturn were talking together. She cast 
 an anxious glance about the room and was relieved to 
 note that it revealed no special token of occupancy. 
 
 She knew very well that she was not as yet rid of old 
 Lott. Such an end couldn't have been achieved by a 
 process so brief and simple. The old man had succeeded, 
 throughout a long life, in gaining nearly all his ends by 
 a kind of persistence which he fortified by a seeming 
 inability to recognize a rebuff. 
 
 He now turned to Minturn with a smile which had 
 in it a measure of condescension toward the headstrong 
 young woman, it was to be inferred; and then both 
 men began to move leisurely toward Rosy's door. 
 
 The door had been only partly ajar; but when the 
 feet of the two men were set on the porch it was flung 
 wide open. And there sat Rosy inside the door with 
 her father's shotgun across her knees, and both her 
 hands upon it with a suggestion of complete determina- 
 tion and readiness. Her left hand supported the stock, 
 so that she might shift the barrel about with a single 
 movement; and her right hand was on the lock, her 
 forefinger touching the trigger. 
 
 "It's loaded with No. 8," said Rosy, "for turkey. 
 And you'd better not put a foot across the sill, arry one 
 of you." In her excitement which was not really ap- 
 parent in her face Rosy reverted to an ancient moun-
 
 ROSY 185 
 
 tain form of speech. But old man Lott comprehended 
 her words perfectly. 
 
 He discarded the suave manner which was his best 
 weapon. It was plain that Rosy's conduct was equiva- 
 lent to a confession, and he felt that his own position, 
 had been strengthened greatly. Nor was he unconscious 
 of the fact that this high-handed behavior on Rosy's 
 part would have precisely the effect he might have de- 
 sired upon Rufus Minturn. Would such a man as Min- 
 turn take kindly to a reception like this and would 
 he consent to go away until his mission had been ac- 
 complished ? 
 
 He yielded to a perfectly candid impulse for the 
 first time, perhaps, in years. "Rosy," he said, "we've 
 reason to believe you're harboring a criminal here in 
 your house, or near by. A horse thief. It's our aim to 
 find out. If you're an innocent young woman you'll 
 stand by and let us search your house. If you're not 
 then so much the worse for you." 
 
 She shifted the shotgun a little. "Mr. Lott," she 
 rejoined, "I reckon your ideas of what a criminal is are 
 different from mine. But there's no horse thief hiding 
 in my house, nor near it, so far as I know. And being 
 an 'innocent young woman,' I wouldn't let you set a 
 foot in my house if the devil was just one step behind 
 you, with his pitchfork hi the small of your back. Now 
 you can just pick up and go. You've got no business 
 here at all." 
 
 Minturn had been regarding her with amazement, 
 perhaps with a faint betrayal of admiration. During 
 the silence which fell he said: "You strike me as a pretty 
 headstrong young woman, I must say. If we've done 
 anything amiss. . . ." 
 
 She did not wait for him to frame his thought. She 
 regarded him with something like tolerance and she
 
 i86 ROSY 
 
 spoke in a different tone. "Mr. Minturn," she said, 
 "I don't like to criticise people's company. But I must 
 say you've come to my house in bad company. If it 
 should please you to come at any other time, in com- 
 pany with a gentleman with any gentleman you care 
 to bring you'll find yourself welcome." She flushed 
 a little as she spoke to him, yet she spoke with a de- 
 cision which he could not have missed. 
 
 He seemed almost to smile. He turned to Lott with 
 a faintly whimsical expression, as if he would have said: 
 "I reckon it's your move now!" 
 
 Lott tried again. "It's our belief," he began, in a 
 tone which somehow suggested official forms and au- 
 thority, "that you're helping Zeb Nanny to escape his 
 just punishment. We want to make sure that's all." 
 
 Her indignation rose again; she seemed to forget 
 herself a little. "If Zeb Nanny was in my house," she 
 said, "and you two should force your way in, what do 
 you suppose he'd do? He'd pop your heads together 
 and throw you to the hogs. If if Zeb really was here, 
 I'd be tempted to let you in !" 
 
 Her threat seemed to sting Minturn, rather than 
 Lott. He began to speak dryly, yet inimically. "We'll 
 allow, Rosy, that I had no right to call here with Mr. 
 Lott. But there's another friend of mine you might 
 not object to. What would you say if I called with 
 Sheriff Hammond? There's nothing the matter with 
 him, I suppose; and I think he'd consent to come with 
 me, if I had a word or two with him." 
 
 If he meant this as a terrifying threat, there was an 
 instant during which it seemed that the shaft had gone 
 home. Rosy's eyes wavered and fell. But she was not 
 too greatly dismayed to think with a good deal of shrewd- 
 ness. She happened to know that the sheriff was up on 
 the summit: he had moved his family up only the week
 
 ROSY 187 
 
 before. But it would take an hour or so, perhaps, to 
 find him and return with him; and by that time dusk 
 would have enveloped the bench. 
 
 She lifted her eyes to Minturn with an effect of perfect 
 frankness. "I've nothing at all against Mr. Hammond," 
 she said. "If you'd like to call with him you'll be quite 
 welcome." 
 
 She knew very well that Minturn had tied her hands, 
 in a measure; but she had adopted the only course which 
 seemed open to her. And if her pulses throbbed pain- 
 fully as the two men withdrew a little and whispered 
 together, she knew that she needed only the evening 
 twilight as an ally, and she should be able to triumph 
 over them all, the sheriff included. To her strained 
 ears came the sound of a timber creaking overhead; 
 but at the same moment she realized that the afternoon 
 sunlight had grown dimmer, and she knew that the 
 day was nearing its end. 
 
 She watched Minturn go away, and she breathed a 
 prayer "If only he will not come back too soon !" She 
 did not move from her place inside the door. Occasion- 
 ally she shifted the shotgun slightly, though she never 
 removed her right hand from the lock. She perceived 
 that Lott was regarding her constantly, even when he 
 moved farther away toward the road, and seemed to 
 be keeping the whole immediate vicinity of her house 
 in view. 
 
 Time passed an endless time, it seemed; and still 
 the daylight lingered. She began to fear the failure 
 of her plans, after all. And at last she heard voices, 
 and knew that Minturn was returning, with Hammond. 
 She looked along the road almost in despair. Yes, they 
 were coming. But she realized with immense relief 
 that their figures were quite obscure, as they moved 
 along the shady road. The room in which she sat must
 
 i88 ROSY 
 
 have become quite shadowy, she knew, to any who 
 stood without and looked in. 
 
 She moved her chair noisily, as if she meant the sound 
 to be a sort of prelude; and then she said warily, yet 
 clearly: "You can come down, now. It's perfectly safe. 
 You must hide in the cavern." 
 
 She did not turn around; but she knew that she had 
 been heard. She heard the creak of the ladder. She 
 had a faint sense of a presence in the room with her 
 and then she knew that she was again alone. 
 
 When the three men approached her door Hammond 
 staring at her incredulously and with honest regret 
 she put the gun aside. She had a welcoming smile for 
 the sheriff. "A real pleasure, Seth," she said. "Please 
 come in." But she was glad that the others did not 
 enter, too. She did not know that Hammond had for- 
 bidden them to do so. She felt that she hated them im- 
 measurably; and she cast a defiant glance at them as 
 they went apart and conferred with each other in mut- 
 tered tones. 
 
 She was lighting the lamp, that the sheriff might see, 
 when he stopped her. "Tell me, Rosy is he here?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I think you'd better find that out for yourself," 
 she replied. 
 
 "I'd a heap rather take your word, Rosy," he de- 
 clared. 
 
 She felt her heart swell. "Thank you, Seth," she 
 said. "But Mr. Minturn might not be satisfied nor 
 old Lott. You'd better look." She lighted the lamp 
 now. "You might look up in the attic. That would 
 seem the most likely place, I suppose. You'd better 
 take the lamp up. It's dark up there." 
 
 He took the lamp from her hands, but his eyes were 
 on her face. He turned from her and looked into the
 
 ROSY 189 
 
 kitchen and even through the open door. Then he 
 handed her the lamp and climbed the ladder, taking 
 the lamp from her as he neared the top. 
 
 He remained in the attic so long that she began to 
 be uneasy; but at last he descended the ladder. He 
 handed her the lamp and she placed it on the table. 
 
 "I kain't find no one," he said. He stood ruminating 
 a moment, and then, with his glance resting on nothing 
 in particular, he began "Rosy, since I've been a she'iff 
 I've been helped all the way through by studyin' two 
 things: hosses and hats. They is a lot to bosses and 
 hats. If I know a man's hoss I know the man bettah 
 than if I'd loaned him money. And hats . . . you might 
 say that hats, next to hosses, is the most info'min' paht 
 of a man's anatomy. If you find a man's hat and 
 him absent you kin be suah he's had a fall or a fight 
 or a simple case of runaway. Robinson Crusoe was 
 strong on footprints. But as fo' me, jest show me a 
 hat. I alwuss notice 'em, on an' off. You kain't fool 
 me ovah a hat." 
 
 "It's very interesting," said Rosy pleasantly; but 
 she was clinching her hands and her breath was coming 
 with difficulty. 
 
 "Rosy," continued the sheriff, "they is a hat up in 
 youah attic." 
 
 "I've no doubt," said Rosy. "There's always a lot 
 of rubbish in every attic." 
 
 "They is a hat in youah attic," repeated Hammond, 
 pulling thoughtfully at his mustache; and then, resting 
 his eyes on Rosy benignly he added, "An' it's Zeb 
 Nanny's hat." 
 
 She could not speak for a moment. The color had 
 forsaken her face, and her lips were parted with an im- 
 pulse to plead with hirn^to say no more. 
 
 But he only added: ;"H I was you I'd put it away
 
 ROSY 
 
 careful, Rosy; an' then if you evah see, Zeb you kin 
 give it to him. Good night, Rosy." 
 
 And she saw him a moment later, his immense bulk 
 towering over the mean figures of Minturn and Lott, 
 out in the road where the night was falling. He was 
 plainly making his report to them, and Rosy knew per- 
 fectly well that she need not fear what that report would 
 be.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SHE seemed quite unusually happy as she set about 
 the task of preparing supper. She did not hurry. 
 Rather, she seemed deliberate with that deliberation 
 which accompanies blissful, placid dreams. So many 
 people were good to her ! She sang as she worked. When 
 she glanced into the pot where there were only potatoes 
 she seemed to see pictures. And occasionally she simply 
 stood with her hand resting on the work-table, and her 
 eyes cast down, dreaming with the candor of one who 
 believes in dreams and is not ashamed of them. 
 
 When she came to mash the potatoes she did it with 
 a sort of bliss as if at the very least she were laying 
 up treasures for herself in heaven. She put butter in 
 as if she were putting a parenthesis into a prayer. Her 
 hand, shaking the salt and pepper in, seemed to be con- 
 ferring blessings or performing a rite. 
 
 She listened, with the pensive joy of a woman who 
 hears a love-song, sung for others now but at one time 
 sung to her alone, to the passers-by along the bench 
 road. The darkness did not make these passings seem 
 sad. On the contrary, she knew that the gleam of her 
 light in the window would please those strangers and 
 others who passed, just as their voices and the pounding 
 hoofs of the horses comforted her. 
 
 When she opened the oven door she sniffed the odor 
 of the browning biscuits with a joy as ecstatic as that 
 of a kitten that is being caressed. She touched them 
 just so to see if they were done all the way through. 
 And finding them done, her eyes gleamed as if she had 
 
 191
 
 i 9 2 ROSY 
 
 come upon nuggets of gold. She took the pan from 
 the oven and bore it across the room as if she were carry- 
 ing garlands to cast before a king, or as if she were the 
 central figure in a pageant of graces. 
 
 Rosy never did anything meanly; and often she bore 
 herself regally, as if she had been informed by a Voice 
 that the place which so many stupid folk call Earth 
 was, in fact, that Heaven which the poets have painted 
 as a place without crosses. 
 
 She spent a good deal of time over the salad which 
 she had made of lettuce from her garden, and cucumbers 
 sliced very thin, and an onion used so sparingly that it 
 was not to be seen. She added oil as fastidiously as a 
 poet admitting a different word to his stanza. 
 
 And at last her moment of perplexity came. You 
 would have recognized it by the sudden cessation of all 
 activity, save the lifting of a finger to her lower lip. But 
 the solution came instantly as her eyes made known. 
 She took a basket from its peg on the wall and spread 
 a napkin over the bottom of it. And then she began 
 to adjust dishes in the bottom of the basket. She ar- 
 ranged them according to a precise plan, with the fried 
 bacon in the middle, and the mashed potatoes on one 
 side, and the biscuits and the salad, together with wine- 
 colored jelly in a little pot, on the other, with coffee-cups 
 and sugar for the coffee and knives and forks and spoons 
 and dishes at the two ends. Then she cast a swift glance 
 toward the road; and finding it temporarily empty 
 and possibly empty for the remainder of the night, now 
 she took the coffee-pot from the stove in one hand 
 and the basket in the other and moved stealthily out 
 of the back door. 
 
 At first she thought of standing at the top of the well 
 and calling; but she changed her mind. There was 
 just one chance in a thousand that some one might hear;
 
 ROSY 193 
 
 and besides, it would be delightful to take Nat by sur- 
 prise. 
 
 She placed her coffee-pot on the ground and made 
 a descent of the well first with her basket. And this 
 being deposited at the bottom she climbed back and 
 got the coffee-pot. She moved with the stealth of a 
 mouse; and when finally she entered the main body of 
 the cavern, with a burden in either hand, she had ac- 
 tually served no notice at all of her coming. 
 
 Then at the last moment the solemnity of the place 
 smote her almost unpleasantly. It was very dark, de- 
 spite that great irregular area of night sky which marked 
 the opening of the cavern at its opposite end. She 
 thought it strange, too, that she could not hear him. 
 Had he by any chance decided at the last moment not 
 to come to this sombre refuge? Was it believable that 
 he had taken advantage of the darkness to make his 
 final escape? 
 
 She spoke his name scarcely above a whisper; and 
 it seemed to her that great weights were lifted from her 
 heart when he answered her immediately answered 
 peevishly, in token that he was not only there, but that 
 he had not changed at all. 
 
 "Good heavens, Rosy!" he exclaimed, "where have 
 you been all this time?" 
 
 She could never understand those persons who find 
 idle hours burdensome. To her it was enough just to 
 live, even if one must occasionally remain in one spot 
 a long time without moving. Her body seemed to have 
 its emotions, quite apart from those of her mind. She 
 did not reply to his question. "I've brought your 
 supper," she said. 
 
 "Have they gone?" he asked. 
 
 "Of course. And their coming didn't matter in the 
 least. Doesn't that make you laugh?"
 
 194 ROSY 
 
 It did not make him laugh, obviously. 
 
 She continued: "Did you know who it was?" 
 
 His reply was that of one who would not be appeased. 
 "You don't think I'm deaf, do you?" 
 
 But she was scarcely paying any attention to him. 
 The drama in which she was taking a part was so satis- 
 fying from her own point of view that she did not think 
 very much about how it appeared to any one else. She 
 said: "Be careful where you step. You must imagine 
 yourself all surrounded by mashed potatoes and a salad 
 and dishes. I'm going to bring a light." 
 
 "I already imagine myself surrounded by chasms," 
 he said. "You needn't fear that I'll go prancing about 
 while you're gone. I haven't lost my wits entirely." 
 
 "Well . . ." she replied, as if she were considering 
 this. And the next moment he knew that she was gone, 
 not because he could not see her, but because of a dif- 
 ferent quality in the silence which engulfed him. He 
 called after her warily, and with an irritating sense of 
 not knowing just where to look, or whether he might 
 call out in safety: "Don't bring it lighted. You might 
 fall. Put it out. You can light it again." 
 
 He heard her voice from the top of the well, faint, 
 elfin-like: "All right, Adam." He had an idea she was 
 laughing at him. 
 
 ... He felt his scalp move a few minutes later. 
 Something had fallen with a flopping sound to the bottom 
 of the well. He almost expected to hear, following this 
 sound, the moans of one dying. But he was reassured 
 by Rosy's voice, calling down to him in a small yet carry- 
 ing volume of sound: "It's a blanket. For us to sit 
 on." And then he knew that she was climbing down the 
 rough sides of the well. He was amazed anew by her 
 handiness, the ease with which she did everything. She 
 was quite near him in another instant. She was striking
 
 ROSY 195 
 
 a match. He saw her place the lamp on the floor of the 
 cavern; and when she handled the lamp chimney in 
 a sort of gingerly way, because it was hot, he did not 
 attempt to assist her. He knew she could manage better 
 by herself. 
 
 The lamplight seemed rather dim, even after the 
 chimney had been put back into place. There was a 
 great deal of the cavern to be illuminated: vague 
 recesses, which seemed interminable in certain direc- 
 tions. Yet he was immeasurably relieved by the faint 
 beams. He looked into Rosy's face or at the one side 
 which was touched by the light and it seemed to him 
 incredible that she should present an appearance so 
 care-free. Indeed, she seemed superlatively pleased. 
 
 "You must get out of the way," she said. "Things 
 must be got ready." She cautioned him, unnecessarily: 
 "Don't go too far toward the opening. The light might 
 blind you. You might tumble." 
 
 Her words had the effect of seeming to make his scalp 
 move again. He thought of all that was comprehended 
 by that word tumble. He stepped cautiously aside, re- 
 garding her wonderingly. 
 
 She had spread the blanket on the floor before he 
 fully perceived what she meant to do. Currents of air, 
 escaping from under the blanket, nearly extinguished 
 the light. 
 
 "Look out!" he cried; but she only continued to 
 move about with energy and decision, humming a little 
 tune. She set the lamp on the middle of the blanket. 
 Then, down on her knees, she began to unload the basket. 
 She spread napkins. She poured coffee. A new odor 
 began to permeate the place of emptiness and disuse. 
 She seemed a sort of benevolent witch, waving a wand 
 in a desert and making flowers bloom: striking a rock 
 and making water flow. She liberated a new spirit.
 
 196 ROSY 
 
 Her voice arose like a fragmentary song of cheer. She 
 pitched her face up, so that the light played about her 
 throat. "Why don't you sit down?" she asked. "You 
 seemed to be in such a hurry and now it appears that 
 you don't care whether you eat or not." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking about eating," he said. "Does 
 that seem to you the main thing?" 
 
 "It's one of the main things. Just now it's the main 
 thing. What else, should you say?" She leaned back 
 on her heels. "Is there anything else you'd rather I'd 
 brought than these biscuits? Look at them!" She 
 lifted one and held it toward him in the hollow of her 
 hand. Her lips were smiling; there was ecstasy in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "I'm wondering what I'm going to do," he said. 
 "How long I'll have to stay here. You don't suppose 
 I mean to stay here all night?" 
 
 Her interest seemed suddenly to become suspended. 
 Her forehead became delicately furrowed. The signif- 
 icance of Sheriff Hammond's lenient action filled her 
 mind. He was an honorable man, besides being a gen- 
 erous friend. She had often heard of his doing stern 
 duties in a stern way. She could trace the working of 
 his mind, when he stood there in her house before her. 
 He was convinced that Nanny was somewhere about; 
 but he believed that he was not really a bad man, and 
 so he could see his way clear to making only a super- 
 ficial search. Still, Nanny was an escaped convict, and 
 it would injure Rosy if he were found in her house 
 which afforded another reason why he should not search 
 for him too zealously. But he had done all that he could 
 do for friendship's sake in giving Rosy a word of warn- 
 ing. He might come again, if duty required it; and 
 she must not make his course needlessly difficult. She 
 must do her part.
 
 ROSY 197 
 
 She looked at Minturn now with wide eyes. "All 
 night!" she repeated. "Why, of course. Weeks and 
 weeks, I should say. Until there's no danger of their 
 searching the house again, anyway. You mustn't be 
 found, you know !" 
 
 He began to eat the food she had prepared for him, 
 but he seemed to have almost no appetite at all. "I 
 think I might go mad," he said presently. "Anything 
 would be better than this." 
 
 She lifted the lid off the jelly-pot. "Nothing could 
 be better," she declared. She seemed determined to 
 persuade him to view the situation as she did. To her 
 it was a thrilling adventure. It would have seemed 
 like a fairy-tale come true, but for certain aspects which 
 she could not permit herself to consider. "I'm going to 
 fix the place up for you," she said. "I'm going to make 
 it charming. The sun will come in in the morning, and 
 the most wonderful picture will be spread before your 
 eyes. You'll hear the birds sing. You'll see the river, 
 like a ribbon. There will be a boat on it maybe like 
 a little lovely bug, crawling along ! And you'll have a 
 chair, and nothing will disturb you. You can imagine 
 that you are a great scholar, or that you have deserted 
 the world because of its sins. You ought to sit in a very 
 romantic way." She pondered. "I think you might 
 have your legs crossed, if that wouldn't seem too worldly. 
 You must hold your chin rather high, and your eyes 
 must be perfectly calm." 
 
 He interrupted: "And just sit, and sit, and sit. . . ." 
 
 "It can't be tiresome. My goodness ! one day there 
 will be the wind, and another day a perfect calm. And 
 the thunder ! Some day the clouds will float right into 
 the cavern where you sit, and you'll hear the thunder 
 rolling about the mountain ! And there'll be one season 
 after another "
 
 198 ROSY 
 
 "Rosy!" he protested. "You talk as if I'd have to 
 sit here forever!" 
 
 He was spreading jelly on a biscuit; and it suddenly 
 occurred to her to regard him as he really was, and not 
 as she had dreamed him to be. Her glance became in- 
 stantly appraising, and then amazed. He was eating 
 with a certain mean industry, and he was frowning . . . 
 and she had put that jelly up with a song, and had caught 
 the sunshine in it! She shook her head despairingly. 
 "You're a pretty strange sort of an Adam, I must say," 
 she declared. 
 
 He seemed not to hear this. He was deeply absorbed 
 in his own outstanding problems. 
 
 She assumed a sudden gravity as if she were putting 
 on a garment which she did not like. She realized that 
 she must make allowances for his unhappy plight. What 
 man, or woman either, would behave just as usual, under 
 all the circumstances? "You must try not to worry," 
 she said gently. "I know it isn't very pleasant. Only, 
 I want you to make the best of it. We'll hope you'll 
 not have to stay here so very long, after all. And there 
 are ever so many things I can do to make you comfort- 
 able. I can get you something to read. I'll bring a lot 
 of father's books down from the attic. And much of 
 the time I'll be able to stay here with you if you care 
 about that." 
 
 She arose a little sadly. She was not deeply grieved, 
 certainly; but her sensations were those of a child who 
 wishes to play a game and who is roughly told that her 
 game is only make-believe. She went away, and soon 
 she was back again, this time with bedding and a pitcher 
 of water. 
 
 "I'm going to leave the lamp," she said finally. "It 
 won't seem so lonesome if you have a light. And I'll 
 have a nice breakfast for you, early in the morning."
 
 ROSY 199 
 
 She went away, still further inclined to be downcast, 
 because his only reply to this was: "I'll not have any 
 fear of your oversleeping, Rosy." 
 
 Still, her high spirits were restored when she turned 
 away from the well, toward her house. She possessed, 
 in a measure, the feeling of the magician who can create 
 strange worlds at will. She was thinking of that region 
 under the mountain, not as a dismal cavern containing 
 a discontented man, but as a place where strange and 
 wonderful things might yet occur.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE feeling that she was taking part in a play a 
 play of certain obscurities, yet of real promise returned 
 to her in the morning. She was impatient to make her 
 appearance down in the hidden cavern, to learn how 
 the unwilling lodger in that strange place had passed 
 the night. She was in the position of a chef who con- 
 cocts a new dish and requires his assistant to partake 
 of the first bite. She was not wholly confident that 
 the cavern was a desirable place in which to spend the 
 whole night alone. She even imagined that goblins 
 might make their appearance there at midnight and 
 dance horribly until daybreak. The place was so very 
 old and unf athomed ! 
 
 However, she placed a check upon her impatience. 
 She was not unaware of the fact that the greatest kind- 
 ness one can show to an unhappy man is to leave him 
 alone when he is asleep. "And," she reflected, "he 
 certainly can sleep in the morning, when other people 
 are beginning to be tired of their beds." 
 
 The shadows would linger a long time in the cavern, 
 even after the sun was searching out the mountainside, 
 up on the bench, in the most persistent manner. The 
 mouth of the cavern was toward the south; and though 
 the direct rays of the sun entered it during certain 
 months, they did not do so until near midday. 
 
 She believed she had manifested much consideration 
 in not going to him until the clock marked the hour of 
 seven. She felt that it would be absurd for any one to 
 continue to sleep at that hour; and she put the finish- 
 ing touches to his breakfast (she had eaten her own 
 
 200
 
 ROSY 201 
 
 poached eggs two hours earlier) and went down into 
 the cavern with a gay, subdued song first looking warily 
 to see that the bench road was empty. 
 
 She drew back a little and there was an effect of her 
 whole being having been silenced when she saw him. 
 He was not assuming any of those romantic postures 
 which she had chosen for him as the proper thing. He 
 was standing with his back to the light, and she knew 
 that he was regarding her intently. And she could tell 
 by his attitude by something in the outlines of his 
 form that he was not playing his part in the drama 
 as it should have been played. 
 
 "You look just as if you were about to fly to pieces," 
 she said, putting down the basket. She added, with a 
 note of remorseful jollity "I know what's the matter. 
 You didn't have any basin, and you couldn't wash your 
 face!" 
 
 He moved forward as if he were angry. He passed 
 her and went to the opening in the cavern through which 
 he could look up into the well and toward the world 
 of normal activities from which he was excluded. Then 
 he turned toward her, exclaiming harshly: "Wash my 
 face ! It seems to me the strangest thing . . . you keep 
 on thinking about trifles that don't count at all. Do 
 you think I'd worry just because I hadn't washed 
 my face ? Great God ! Think of the fix I'm in down 
 here in a place like a grave, with no prospect of getting 
 out ... I can't do it, Rosy ! I should go crazy. You'll 
 scarcely understand . . . but it doesn't even mean any- 
 thing to me, any more, that I've got you for company 
 part of the time, and that you're trying to help me. 
 You seem to have become as unimportant as the kind 
 of shoes I've got to wear, or what I have for dinner. 
 I can't help seeing the one big thing of all the liberty 
 I've lost. I was crazy to think I could hide until the
 
 202 ROSY 
 
 war is over. It seems now as if it might never be over. 
 And even when it is ... you see, I'm ruined forever, 
 unless I can get entirely away somewhere. And this 
 horrible place here ... I tell you, I'm going to get out, 
 Rosy. I must. I've asked you to go with me. You've 
 got your choice. But I'm going, if I have to go alone." 
 
 Her buoyancy had deserted her completely. But 
 something more fundamental than that was leaving 
 her too. Her interest in him her latent faith that he 
 could be induced to continue his part in those events 
 upon which her destiny depended was receding. She 
 was furious because he had said as if he were behaving 
 generously "I've asked you to go with me." For an 
 instant she was tempted to stand aside and bid him 
 begone to tell him that she did not care what he did. 
 
 She remained silent for a time, and then she said in 
 a low voice: "I really don't see how you can go away, 
 unless you mean to run a great risk." And then it oc- 
 curred to her that it was not honorable to seek to per- 
 suade him to stay, when her chief motive almost her 
 only motive, now was to protect the interests of an- 
 other, rather than his own interests. But on the other 
 hand, since she had opened her door to him at a time 
 when she had nothing at all to gain by doing so, was it 
 more than a fair bargain that he should remain now a 
 little longer, at least, because she wished it? 
 
 She poured his coffee for him; and the odor of it, and 
 the little wisps of steam which went floating away into 
 the open, seemed to clear the atmosphere for both of 
 them. She found a level spot on which to place the 
 coffee-pot. "You've no idea how many things I can 
 do to make it all easier for you," she went on more hope- 
 fully. "I've been planning. You're to have some furni- 
 ture down here : so that it will seem almost like a room in 
 a house. Like a room in a castle, you might imagine."
 
 ROSY 203 
 
 She looked up at him soothingly, with a faint smile on 
 her lips, as she handed his coffee to him. She felt like 
 a very ancient wise creature when she found how easily 
 she had diverted his troubled thoughts. 
 
 "Furniture?" he echoed almost childishly. "What 
 .furniture could you get into a place like this?" 
 
 She began to enumerate. "A bed and a table; chairs, 
 books, newspapers. I've been thinking how I could 
 drape parts of the walls, but I haven't worked that out 
 yet." 
 
 He seemed really interested, though sceptical. "How 
 are you to get such things here ? It's all you and I could 
 do to get through that opening there. When it comes 
 to a table- 
 She went into the matter briskly. "I could carry 
 it out back of the house, to the edge of the cliffs, and 
 let it down with a rope to-night, after dark. I could 
 tie the rope to a tree; and then we could pull the table 
 in at the opening. The other things the same way. It 
 would be quite simple." 
 
 But she had not convinced him. "It would be quite 
 simple," he said derisively, "for you to throw yourself 
 over the edge of the precipice up there. I'll not have 
 you taking any such chances for my sake." 
 
 She was glad he had thought to add that final clause. 
 It gave her heart to persevere. "There'd be no risk 
 at all. I've often wanted to do just that ever since 
 I was a little girl. I've an excuse now. I could let two 
 chairs down : a dignified chair, for you, and a little chair 
 for me. I could sit in mine and sew, and you could be 
 there, ever so much higher than me, reading to me. Or 
 we could just sit and imagine things. I can't think of 
 anything that would be such fun!" 
 
 He was drinking his coffee: first listlessly and then 
 with a slightly awakened sense of her cheerfulness, of
 
 204 ROSY 
 
 her kindness. The evils of the night, largely imaginary, 
 after all, were receding and becoming dim. The horror 
 of the loneliness and silence was gone. 
 
 He took soft-boiled eggs from the steaming hot towel 
 in which she had wrapped them, so that they would 
 retain their heat, and began to open them. "It might 
 be managed," he said. 
 
 She sat on the blanket which had been spread as a 
 carpet and wound her arms about her knees. Her face 
 was pitched upward and she was taking in the unlimited 
 dark spaces of the cavern, which were beginning to exert 
 their spell over her again. She had not looked out into 
 the region of sunlit air for many minutes, and as a result 
 her vision penetrated the dark hollows of the cavern. 
 She thought it might be exciting to pretend that evil 
 spirits were there in hiding, and that they meant to cast 
 her and her companion out of their paradise. She 
 thought: "It would be his part to fight the evil spirits; 
 and when he began to fail, after a brave fight, it would 
 be my part to conquer them by some sort of witchcraft." 
 She tried to decide what sort of magic power she might 
 imagine herself to possess; and then she gave up the 
 entire scheme, because she felt he would not like it. 
 She must picture only cheerful and friendly influences 
 around them. She was discouraged because he would 
 not help her by so much as a sympathetic attitude. 
 She felt that she might have thought of precisely the 
 right plans if he would only say "What jolly times we 
 shall have here, Rosy!" But that, plainly, was pre- 
 cisely what he would never say. 
 
 She felt suddenly bored. She wanted to get away. 
 She was sorry that she could dream such satisfactory 
 dreams when she was only a little distance from him, 
 while her powers of magic were robbed from her the 
 moment she got with him. He was like a heavy burden
 
 ROSY 205 
 
 on her back, preventing her from running, or even from, 
 walking upright. 
 
 She prepared to leave him presently. "I'll be back 
 off and on," she said. "But you know I can't do very 
 much until it's dark. Wait until I put the furniture in, 
 and see how different everything will be! Then we'll 
 decide what it shall be. Maybe a throne-room. Or a 
 philosopher's secret-chamber. We can imagine you 
 are framing plans to set up a government or to over- 
 throw one. Or we can imagine you are one of those 
 fellows . . . what do you call them ? Yes alchemists ! 
 And oh . . . philters!" She brought her hands to- 
 gether sharply and repeated the word "philters!" 
 
 He looked at her blankly, with drooping lip. 
 
 She only said, after catching the expression on his 
 face, "Let me get out of here !" and he heard her laugh- 
 ing forlornly in the distance. 
 
 During the afternoon she strolled along the bench 
 road; and when she arrived at the spring she knew very 
 well that she had been wishing to talk to Jacob Feld, 
 though she had been unaware that this was what she 
 wished to do. She recalled her disappointment at not 
 finding him at the spring when she went in the early 
 morning to fetch water. 
 
 But he was there now, and he looked at her signif- 
 icantly as she approached. There was an expression 
 in his eyes which said plainly: "Well, are you going to 
 tell me all about it ? " She knew that he wished to know 
 about her encounter with Lott and Minturn and Ham- 
 mond though she knew also that he would not press 
 her to tell him. 
 
 "It was nothing," she said briefly. "They came and 
 looked and went away and that was all there was to 
 it." She avoided his eyes for the moment. She knew
 
 206 ROSY 
 
 they would be asking silently "But isn't Zeb there, 
 really?" She was unwilling to discuss the subject. 
 
 She was relieved when she read in his eyes that his 
 mind had changed to another subject. He began to 
 smile thoughtfully and to weigh some matter. 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Feld?" she asked. 
 
 "Springer," he replied. "I was thinking of Springer." 
 
 "What's he been doing now?" she wanted to know. 
 Springer had been the most tactless of all the Germans 
 round about always offending some one with his boasts 
 of how Germany led all the other nations. 
 
 Old Jacob led the way to a seat and they both sat 
 down, Rosy smoothing her skirts quite as Feld remem- 
 bered her having done when she was a little girl. 
 
 "You know," began the old man, "Springer don't 
 sell no more truck to the people of Pisgah on Saturdays, 
 as he used to do?" 
 
 Rosy knew this, but she did not wish to spoil a story; 
 and so she said interestedly: "No?" 
 
 "No. He queered himself, what you call it. First, 
 he told everybody that Germany was going to win. He 
 stuck his chest out. You could hear him from one end 
 of the block to the other. And that made everybody 
 mad, and they told him he needn't come around no more 
 with his produce. So. And the very next week he shows 
 up again this time with an American flag on his wagon. 
 And he says to everybody 'We're going to get the 
 Huns!' Talking just the other way, you see. But it 
 didn't look right, on account he had changed too quick, 
 after they wouldn't buy his stuff. And everybody just 
 looked at him as if they didn't know him, and says: 
 'We don't need nothing this morning, Springer.' Poor 
 Springer ! He told me about it with tears in his eyes. 
 He had done one thing, and then he had done the op- 
 posite, and both times he got in bad, what you call it. 
 He asked me, 'What can you do with such people?'
 
 ROSY 207 
 
 "He went home mad all the way through. He told 
 his wife he would feed his apples and the rest to the 
 hogs. But he got no comfort from her. She said 'But 
 William, if they won't buy your apples, will they any 
 more buy your hogs?' He shouted to her to be silent, 
 and to speak only of the things she comprehended. He 
 went on growling about the unreasonable Americans. 
 He said they were as bad as women who, as everybody 
 knew, were nothing unless there was some one in au- 
 thority over them. 
 
 "He stayed mad with his wife for days and days," 
 continued old Jacob. "And instead of trying to 
 straighten him out, she got just as mad as he was 
 maybe a little madder, on account she wasn't allowed 
 to say nothing to spit it out, what you call it." 
 
 Rosy frowned delicately, and smoothed her dress, 
 and said nothing. 
 
 "Springer kept talking to me about it, and complain- 
 ing that his wife was against him too. He said she wanted 
 to be the boss always. And I told him that was the way 
 with a thin woman, generally, and that he ought to 
 have a wife with a little flesh on her bones." 
 
 Rosy uttered a little cry of disapproval. The image 
 of poor, gaunt Mrs. Springer came before her, and it 
 seemed to her that Mr. Feld shouldn't have said any- 
 thing like that. But she checked her impulse to rebuke 
 him, and he continued: "I told him if a woman didn't 
 have any flesh on her bones she was not a well woman 
 and that it wasn't fair to judge women by one that was 
 sick. A woman's got to have flesh not always I don't 
 mean only on hef face just. You take a woman who's 
 not all skin and bone and you don't have to boss her 
 and mostly she won't want to boss you. It's enough 
 if once in a while maybe when you're sitting on the 
 porch after the sun has gone down and before the lights 
 are lit it's enough if you take her hand maybe and
 
 208 ROSY 
 
 say . . . 'Eh?' And then you'll both just sit there, 
 saying nothing. Sometimes she'll scold you, maybe 
 when you need to be scolded. And then she'll let you 
 see that her heart is hurt, on account she had to scold 
 you; and you'll feel little . . . you know? So. And 
 it does a man good to feel little once in a while. As long 
 as he knows how to feel little once in a while he'll maybe 
 not altogether forget God. 
 
 "But about Springer he tried again to-day. That's 
 what I wanted to tell you. He loaded up his wagon 
 this morning with fine apples and drove away down 
 the mountain. Poor devil ! " 
 
 "But will people buy from him now?" asked Rosy. 
 
 "He thinks so. He's been putting his wits to work. 
 He told me about it as he drove down this morning. 
 He's made up a funny story about the Kaiser. He 
 thought about it day and night, and at last it came to 
 him the way he wanted it." 
 
 "A story?" she murmured. 
 
 "You know those things people tell, and you see them 
 in the paper, and people laugh at them on account there's 
 a surprise at the end." 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Rosy. "An an anecdote." 
 
 "Yes. And Springer has worked out a anecdote 
 with the Kaiser in it. He told it to me. And he's going 
 to take his apples to his old patrons and he expects they 
 will buy, on account he is going to tell them the anec- 
 dote. The anecdote about Kaiser Bill." 
 
 "What is the anecdote, Mr. Feld?" asked Rosy. 
 
 He took fright instantly. "Are Springer's customers 
 ladies, Rosy?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, I think so. Most of them, anyway." 
 
 His eyes became round with wonder. "I'm afraid 
 Springer won't sell his apples, then. It's more likely 
 as he'll be put in jail. I couldn't tell you the anecdote,
 
 ROSY 209 
 
 Rosy. It's not what you'd call a a ladies' anecdote. 
 I wouldn't tell it to no one." He thought a moment 
 and then added: "You know these American vommens, 
 Rosy . . . you can't always look a thing in the face 
 when you're talking to them. Sometimes you've got 
 to step around and look at it from one side or the other. 
 It will be the same thing, you know, but it will look 
 different. No?" 
 
 Rosy turned her face away and smiled. Presently 
 she said: "I think I understand." 
 
 It seemed really a coincidence that they should hear 
 the rumble of wheels on the road just then and that 
 William Springer should appear almost immediately. 
 
 His head was hung dejectedly, and Feld's face grew 
 sad with pity and concern. "He went away with his 
 chest sticking out, shouting to his horses," he said mus- 
 ingly. "He's had bad luck." 
 
 But Springer's wagon was empty. 
 
 Feld, rising and moving slowly up the path, asked 
 cheerfully: "Well, Springer?" 
 
 Springer turned and looked indifferently at the empty 
 wagon bed. "They wouldn't let me tell my story," 
 he said, checking his team. "The first one said: 'Yes, 
 I want some apples, Springer if you'll just leave me 
 the apples and say nothing!' What do you think of 
 that? It was the same way with all of them. And me 
 lying awake to think up something to please them!" 
 He shook the reins and drove on, miffed beyond expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Feld returned to the spring, smiling dryly. "They're 
 both all right," he remarked. 
 
 "Both?" asked Rosy, puzzled. 
 
 "Springer has sold his apples, and that's well enough 
 for him." 
 
 "And who else is all right, Mr. Feld?"
 
 sio ROSY 
 
 The old man's lips were puckered whimsically and 
 he shook his head. After a silence he said: "But it was 
 a narrow escape for Kaiser Bill !" 
 
 . . . They sat silent for a time. Rosy felt that heavy 
 burdens were slipping from her shoulders while she sat 
 at the apex of that vast triangle cut into the mountain, 
 from which the water descended in a whispering trickle 
 down into hidden, vast places. She realized that she 
 did not like to think of returning to her house, and to 
 her guest down in the cavern. It seemed to her that 
 she was beginning to know what married life must be 
 like under certain unfavorable circumstances. She had 
 learned that she must seek for no congenial responses 
 from that companion down in the cavern, and she felt 
 a kind of truant gladness in her present moments of 
 freedom. 
 
 "It's like being a dissatisfied wife," she mused. "I've 
 had the lesson without its ever having been put in the 
 book for me." 
 
 She knew that she should go back and perform all 
 her duties presently, but it was pleasant to linger at 
 the spring with Jacob Feld.
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 DURING her hour at the spring with old Jacob she 
 spoke of many things, yet she went away at last without 
 touching upon the matter which had been uppermost 
 in her mind all the while which, little by little, had 
 come to be the one superlatively important thing of 
 her life. 
 
 - It had occurred to her more than once that it would 
 be a great pleasure to confide in him: not really to ask 
 his advice, perhaps, but rather to seek his approval of 
 a course which she felt sure she meant to take. 
 
 For many days she had been working out a great 
 problem or perhaps it would be nearer the truth to 
 say that she had been trying to accustom herself to a 
 new role which had been assigned to her by powers which 
 were invisible and mysterious, but which left her no 
 choice of her own. Yet something in the nature of her 
 problem, and in her own nature too, had made it im- 
 possible for her to ask for sympathy or approval. She 
 had kept her own counsel, denying herself the ecstasy 
 of frank revelation, either to the Powells or old Jacob 
 Feld, who were beyond question her most] sympathetic 
 friends. 
 
 But as she returned from the spring, walking dreamily 
 along the bench road, she knew that the time for inde- 
 cision had passed and that she meant now to commit 
 herself to a promise and to a course from which there 
 could never more be any turning back. 
 
 When she entered her door she paused for one ecstatic 
 sigh. It was good to know clearly what she wanted to 
 do what she ought to do ! She lifted a finger to her
 
 212 ROSY 
 
 lower lip in token of a certain minor perplexity. When 
 had she last seen the writing materials her father had 
 kept in the house, and where ? She had not thought of 
 them since her father's death. She could not think 
 what she had done with them. She frowned. What 
 would the Powells say if they knew she had never given 
 a thought to writing materials during all those months ? 
 There was a word which applied to persons who never 
 wrote anything. She tried to think of the word. It 
 was . . . illiterates. Did it apply to her? 
 
 She began a systematic search for the writing ma- 
 terials. She had begun to think she must have destroyed 
 them, without knowing it, when at last she came upon 
 them: the ink-bottle, the pen and the holder, and the 
 tablet and envelopes, all wrapped in a piece of news- 
 paper. They were on top of the cupboard in the kitchen, 
 behind the ornamental piece at the front. 
 
 She got them down and held them in her hands awk- 
 wardly, a little suspiciously as an angel might hold 
 deeds to land, or a life insurance policy. She perceived 
 that she ought to be holding the ink-bottle the other 
 way up, and she almost dropped it in righting it. She 
 tried to remember where her father had placed them 
 when he wanted to write. During her school-days there 
 had been a desk, but certainly nobody ever thought of 
 keeping a desk in the house. 
 
 The front-room table would do; and then she re- 
 membered, as she moved toward the table, that it was 
 here her father had done his writing, when there had 
 been any to do. She recalled him as he used to remove 
 the things from the table and pile them almost anywhere 
 for the time being. 
 
 Little beads of perspiration had broken out on her fore- 
 head by the time she had taken her place at the table, 
 to compose herself for her task. There was a light in
 
 ROSY 213 
 
 her eyes, dubious yet dancing, like that in the eyes of 
 one who undertakes a dangerous yet enticing enter- 
 prise. 
 
 She sat at the table nearly an hour, pondering and 
 doubting and finally writing. Some of the sentences 
 she wrote were extraordinarily plain and candid. "You 
 guessed wrong," was one of them. "He was not my 
 sweetheart. Anyway, he isn't now. You are my sweet- 
 heart." 
 
 So much of authorship was not achieved easily, of 
 course. Certainly, she tapped her lips with the end 
 of the pen-holder; and realizing that she had done this 
 once, she delighted in the thought that the action must 
 have given her an appearance entirely unlike an illiterate 
 person. She continued to tap her lips with the end of 
 the pen-holder, with a new sense of luxury and elegance. 
 And finally, inclining her head for the nicest part of her 
 performance, she laboriously traced the words: "I love 
 you." She put aside her pen and held the paper at a 
 distance, to get the full effect of those words. They 
 struck her as being singularly good. She put the paper 
 down and clasped her hands against her heart and shook 
 herself with a kind of hugging effect. And then she 
 took her pen in hand again and repeated the words, "I 
 love you." 
 
 She was aware then that an extraordinary sensation 
 had overwhelmed her. Her whole being was charged 
 with a powerful emotion. She laid the pen down and 
 regarded it dreamily, her chin propped up in her hands. 
 It had been her father's pen, and he was not here now. 
 She thought: "How I should like to hug him and tell 
 him I love some one ! Imagine it ! He would first pat 
 me on the back and then he would hold me a little away 
 from him, and say 'Eh? So?' And then he would 
 laugh and draw me to him, and then he would call mother
 
 214 ROSY 
 
 and say: 'What do you think, mother? this infant 
 here . . . have you got any bread and milk ready?' " 
 And then she flung herself forward on the table and 
 cried as she had not done since her parents died per- 
 haps not even then. To have great good news, and to 
 know that they who would most rejoice in it were never 
 to know ! 
 
 She imagined herself a being newly created, essen- 
 tially changed, when she arose from the table and wiped 
 her eyes. She took the several sheets of paper upon 
 which she had made unsuitable beginnings to her letter 
 and carried them into the kitchen, where she put them 
 into the stove. 
 
 There were other important matters to be attended 
 to. She must decide what division of the furniture she 
 meant to make. The cavern must be made not only 
 comfortable, but to a certain extent attractive; and 
 yet she must not deplete the supply in her own room to 
 such an extent that visitors would say: "What have 
 you done with all your furniture, Rosy?" It would be 
 quite a task, deciding how the furniture was to be appor- 
 tioned. 
 
 She could manage without the small table in the front 
 room, and one of the lamps. The kitchen lamp, it had 
 better be. No one would note its absence. His bed 
 must be brought down from the attic. She had con- 
 sidered whether he might not return to the house to 
 sleep after it seemed probable that Sheriff Hammond 
 did not mean to make any further search; but now it 
 seemed to her that it would not do at all for him to leave 
 the cavern at night. The risk would be too great. Be- 
 sides, since she had written that letter . . . well, it would 
 be best for every reason for him to have the cavern fitted 
 up so that he could remain in it comfortably. 
 
 There were two chairs which could be spared: one
 
 ROSY 215 
 
 from the front room and another he had been using in, 
 the attic. He ought to have two, so that he could change 
 from one to the other if he got tired of sitting in one too 
 long, and also so that she might visit him and sit down 
 as if she were at home. She must try to spend a good 
 deal of time with him; and she must learn how to be 
 friendly enough to keep him friendly, and yet not friendly 
 enough to make him bold, or to create wrong beliefs in 
 his mind. It would be necessary for her to study this 
 problem pretty thoroughly. 
 
 She would take the writing materials to him too. She 
 seldom had need of them, and it would seem rather 
 elegant for him to have writing materials where he could 
 use them. She realized that he certainly would not 
 wish to write any letters, since he could not safely com- 
 municate with his friends. But there might be other 
 things he could think of to write. It even occurred to 
 her that he might like to write a book. It seemed to 
 her that he might be the very sort of person who would 
 wish to write a book : a fault-finding fellow who had 
 his mind, nearly all the time, upon matters which were 
 of small consequence to other people. She would take 
 some of her father's books to him, so that he might have 
 models, or so that he could get ideas. She had an idea 
 that books must be something like yeast that one 
 was needed for a start, and that the others came from 
 it in some manner or other. For herself, she was really 
 prejudiced against books. Could she not remember 
 how her father used to sit before the fireplace of a winter 
 night, reading; and how at length he would close the 
 book and stare into the fire so solemnly that no one 
 ventured to speak ? She could recall the silence of those 
 moments: the clock ticking, and the wind blowing over 
 the mountain, and the fire purring on the hearth. . . . 
 
 She must take his razor to him, certainly; and she
 
 2i6 ROSY 
 
 could easily spare the little looking-glass in the kitchen. 
 
 She lost herself in idle speculation as to how she might 
 make the cavern seem less forbidding and unbounded. 
 She had hoped to think of something in the way of 
 draperies for the walls; but this plan now seemed im- 
 practicable. In truth, his evident determination not 
 to be happy as long as he had to remain in this hidden 
 place had discouraged her so that she decided not to 
 undertake to carry out many of the plans she had had 
 in mind. 
 
 She had scarcely made up her mind touching the 
 things she might spare for the cavern when the dusk 
 fell, and she remembered almost with a feeling of guilt 
 that it had been hours since she had gone to him. He 
 would be more disagreeable than ever. That was the 
 most difficult thing in their relationship, she realized. 
 Each little unpleasantness that came up between them 
 grew in proportions until it became a big thing, sepa- 
 rating them still further, instead of shrinking to nothing 
 and permitting them to be closer together than before. 
 She realized that it was becoming quite a disagreeable 
 task to go to him, if she had stayed away half an hour 
 longer than he thought she meant to stay. 
 
 With an unwonted air of energy she took her letter 
 to Jacob Feld and asked him to mail it for her when 
 he went to Pisgah. She held it so that he could see 
 the name on the envelope Nat Minturn. But she 
 did not say, "I have a letter for Nat Minturn," and 
 Jacob Feld did not look at the name she had written. 
 
 Then she returned to her house and took the clothes- 
 line from its place behind the kitchen-door and went 
 out through the yard, toward the bottomless chasm 
 where the little pine-trees stood. She thought it a just 
 punishment that Nat might no longer sit here in the 
 open, he who had taken no pleasure in the lovely spot
 
 ROSY 217 
 
 when he had had the chance to sit there. She made 
 several turns with the clothes-line around one of the 
 trees. Then she let the line lie while she went back into 
 the house. 
 
 Presently she returned, flushed with exertion, carry- 
 ing the sitting-room table. She tied one end of the line 
 to a leg of the table. Holding the other end in her hand 
 she drew in the slack until there was barely length enough 
 for the table to be pushed over the verge of the bluffs. 
 Then she stepped back and lengthened the line, play- 
 ing it out slowly, so that the table sank from sight. She 
 heard it bumping against the face of the rock wall. She 
 asked herself after a time: "Have I let it down far 
 enough?" She could not be sure; but when she reck- 
 oned that the table had reached a point opposite the 
 opening in the cavern she tied the end of the line to a 
 different pine-tree; and then she hurried eagerly in 
 the direction of the well. 
 
 No one was visible along the bench road. Even the 
 trees and rocks were being swallowed up in the gloom 
 of night. Sphinx Rock, immense and sinister, was a 
 mere blur. She climbed, with pounding pulses, down 
 into the well. 
 
 He had heard her coming, obviously. He was coming 
 toward her in great agitation when she appeared in the 
 cavern. And then she caught her breath because she 
 could make out that he was almost beside himself with 
 anger. He cried out hoarsely 
 
 "What in the world does this mean, Rosy? Do you 
 suppose I haven't any nerves at all? To have that 
 thing come scuttling down the face of the rocks for all 
 the world like a man kicking out with his feet . . . what 
 did you suppose I'd think, sitting here alone?" 
 
 She stood regarding the obscure, inimical figure be- 
 fore her. She was offended anew because he would not
 
 218 ROSY 
 
 enter into the spirit of their necessities, of anything 
 she did. She cautioned herself not to respond to him 
 disagreeably. "I didn't think you'd be frightened/* 
 she said. 
 
 "I don't believe you thought at all." 
 
 "Yes, I did. Maybe I should have told you before- 
 hand." She seemed to put him out of her mind. She 
 went cautiously toward the immense mouth of the 
 cavern. The horizontal line of rope bisected it. The 
 table hung on a level with her feet. "Why didn't you 
 pull it in and untie it, when you found out what it was ? " 
 she asked. Still, she did not turn toward him. She 
 reached forward cautiously and caught the table and 
 tugged at it until two of its legs were inside the cavern. 
 She began untying the line that held it. 
 
 "Rosy!" he remonstrated, "that's not a thing for 
 a girl to do ! " 
 
 It seemed to her that there was a note of terror in 
 his voice. But the words offended her. "I've had to 
 do lots of things most girls don't do," she said, "but 
 I've never been told that it hurt me any." She began 
 to enumerate the things she had had to do: "I've had 
 to chop wood, and do the feeding, even in winter, and 
 carry things up the mountain eggs and chickens." 
 Forgetting herself for the moment she added: "If this 
 is not the sort of thing for a girl to do, you might offer 
 to do it yourself." 
 
 His voice arose slightly. "It needn't be done," he 
 declared. Then realizing that he had spoken angrily 
 he added in a changed tone: "You see what it's doing 
 to me sitting and moping in this ungodly place ! " 
 
 She dragged the table entirely within the cavern, 
 letting the end of the line swing free. "Yes, you're 
 getting nervous," she decided; and she was reminding 
 herself that she must not upbraid him for conditions
 
 ROSY 2ig 
 
 which were perhaps natural enough, and which he 
 couldn't conquer. She placed the lamp on the table 
 and lighted it. "Now, isn't that an improvement ? " 
 she asked. Their eyes met: hers beamingly hopeful, 
 his still smouldering with anger. She decided not to 
 pay too much attention to him. "I must go and let 
 the other things down," she said. She called back over 
 her shoulder: "I don't mind doing it. I'll have things 
 looking quite inviting before long." 
 
 She had asked herself how she was ever to get those 
 articles of furniture back to their proper places again. 
 Perhaps she never should be able to do so. But he needed 
 them, and she must not mind their loss, if it should prove 
 that she could never have them again. In any case, 
 it would be pleasant to think that the cavern was 
 furnished. Perhaps the time would come when she 
 should be able to come here with others with friends 
 who would realize how delightful it was to have a secret 
 place which made you think of demons, or of Eden 
 but which had chairs and a table in it. 
 
 An irresistible impulse seized her just before she dis- 
 appeared. She stood regarding Minturn, and smiling, 
 she sang just one line of a comic song she had heard 
 somewhere: 
 
 "Uovin' day, movin' day . . ." 
 And then she was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IT was during the last week in August that Pisgah 
 and the surrounding country were stirred in an almost 
 unprecedented way by the tragedy of the Minturn plan- 
 tation. 
 
 There was at first the unimpressive report that the 
 Minturn girls, Fanny and Evelyn, were ill. It was known 
 that old Doctor Busbee had been summoned to attend 
 them. The doctor was listening to the newest symptoms 
 of Mrs. Plant as he did regularly on Monday and Fri- 
 day afternoons when the summons came; and it was 
 sundown on Monday when he reached the Minturn 
 home. 
 
 He found the two girls in bed: a little paler and wider- 
 eyed than usual, but by no means alarmingly ill, he 
 thought. He had an assortment of phrases which he 
 always found convenient in certain emergencies; and 
 he knew instantly which of these phrases would best 
 apply to the present situation. They were gruffly play- 
 ful, and even humorous. They were in the form of in- 
 quiries, though the doctor scarcely felt the need of ac- 
 quiring information. He was not a very strong believer 
 in information. His belief was limited to a certain 
 formula touching the all-sufficient potency of quinine 
 and calomel. 
 
 Moreover, he had an abiding scepticism touching 
 ladies who were taken to their beds by illness. Long 
 ago he had firmly intrenched himself behind a fatuous 
 and ancient rigmarole, as thus: Women were fond of
 
 ROSY 221 
 
 sending for the doctor when they were bored by all other 
 kinds of visitors. They imagined they were singularly 
 interesting when they could have the doctor beside 
 them and talk tediously of their symptoms. They were 
 foolish creatures who exaggerated everything. 
 
 The element of truth which might have been found 
 in this rule was of no value to him at all, because he 
 did not realize that the rule might have been applied 
 quite as fairly to men as to women. 
 
 He looked at Fanny and Evelyn, and questioned 
 them, and then grumbled humorously: "Ah ha! A 
 little touch of summer complaint !" And he prescribed 
 for them, and talked to them longer than he should 
 have done, and then spent ten minutes with Mrs. Min- 
 turn in discussing certain social movements in Pisgah. 
 He lightly put aside her efforts to make known to him 
 certain alarming symptoms she had remarked in her 
 daughters. "Yes, of course: that was to have been 
 expected," he said speaking in so complacent a tone 
 that the mother became greatly distressed. She per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "But I'm afraid it's something serious, Doctor Bus- 
 bee," she said. "Their both having been taken ill at 
 the same time, and in the same way. ... It was Satur- 
 day night, or Sunday morning, rather, when they called 
 me. At one o'clock in the morning. They were in an 
 alarming state. Their bodies were very cold, and they 
 were perspiring freely. They were trembling as if they 
 had a chill of some kind. They begged me to close the 
 windows and bring more cover for them though it 
 was really very warm. I can't tell you how cold they 
 were their heads, their abdomens, their hands. And 
 then they became feverish all of a sudden, it seemed. 
 Their bodies became hot. They have lost strength in 
 a dreadful way."
 
 222 ROSY 
 
 She seemed to wish to say more. Her eyes were dark 
 with misery. 
 
 The doctor brought forth the sentences which never 
 failed to soothe. 
 
 "Exactly!" he exclaimed. "I understand perfectly. 
 Well . . . once every two hours, remember. And you'd 
 better keep them in bed for a day or two." 
 
 By Wednesday it was known throughout Pisgah that 
 the Minturn girls were alarmingly ill; and the town 
 consoled itself by taking up an ancient topic of con- 
 troversy: namely, the relative merits of old Doctor 
 Busbee, who had practised medicine in Pisgah and the 
 surrounding country for forty years, and Doctor Hol- 
 loway, who had graduated from a medical school some 
 ten years ago, and had come to Pisgah to build up a 
 practice. The younger physician had incurred a good 
 deal of scepticism by certain advanced theories he held, 
 and which he would expound briefly and crisply when 
 called upon to do so. A part of Pisgah dismissed him 
 as a new-fangled person. He was "afraid of a little 
 dirt." He was too fond of upsetting old ways of doing 
 things. Moreover, he charged a larger fee than Doctor 
 Busbee. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was noted as time passed that young 
 Holloway certainly succeeded in curing his patients in 
 a remarkable number of cases, and often in a very short 
 time. And thus there were not a few who expressed 
 the belief that if the Minturns would only call in Doctor 
 Holloway, something might yet be done for Fanny and 
 Evelyn, who were now said to be almost at the point 
 of death. 
 
 On Thursday a ripple of excitement -went through the 
 town when it was known that Mr. Minturn had driven 
 hastily into Pisgah and had gone straight to Doctor
 
 ROSY 223 
 
 Holloway's office. Holloway chanced to be in; and 
 five minutes later he was being driven out the valley 
 road in Minturn's carriage. 
 
 The young physician readily brought out certain 
 facts which everybody else had overlooked up to the 
 moment of his arrival. The girls had engaged in a game 
 of tennis on Saturday afternoon, and had played long 
 and violently. They had interrupted their play every 
 ten minutes or so to go to the well near by and draw 
 a fresh bucket of water, from which they drank without 
 stint. And it was that night or very early the next 
 morning that they had been taken ill. 
 
 There was a decidedly significant expression in the 
 young physician's eyes when he made an examination 
 of his patients and listened to this recital. He asked to 
 see the well from which the girls had drunk; and he 
 briefly informed Mr. Minturn that it was here that the 
 girls had made themselves ill. He held to this even 
 when Minturn protested angrily and declared that his 
 well was famed for miles around for its excellence. 
 
 The doctor frowned slightly. "I know those tradi- 
 tions," he said. "But you see ... there's no way of 
 really safeguarding well water. Analyzed, it is nearly 
 always found to contain impurities." 
 
 Minturn took him up vigorously: "But we've been 
 using it for years. If it would poison one, why not an- 
 other? Eh?" He asked this triumphantly. 
 
 The response was in an unruffled tone. "There are 
 always many conditions to be considered. Sometimes 
 the body will withstand a certain amount of poison. 
 The same amount, at other times say when your energy 
 is depleted will get its work in. It's very simple. But 
 there . . . it's our business now to repair the harm that's 
 been done not to talk about it." 
 
 For two days and nights he gave his time unspar-
 
 224 ROSY 
 
 ingly to his patients. However, at noon on Saturday 
 the news reached Pisgah: Fanny Minturn was dead. 
 Her case had been hopeless, it seemed, from the time 
 Doctor Holloway had been called. 
 
 Little groups of people assembled everywhere to dis- 
 cuss the news: on the business streets, at corners, out- 
 side gates, on porches, under spreading trees. It had 
 been sudden that was what made it seem terrible, 
 perhaps. She had been seen on such-and-such a day, 
 looking better than usual : and now she was dead. There 
 were those who found her death a singularly pathetic 
 thing because of certain traits she had possessed: her 
 habit of keeping aloof from others. It was felt that 
 no one had ever really known her and now they never 
 could know her. And then the possibilities that life 
 had held for her her father being such a rich man . . . 
 the sad event was spun out and examined pensively 
 and gone over again and again, by the whispering groups 
 of persons outside gates and under the trees. 
 
 Scarcely an hour later the receding tide of emotion 
 was made to rise again by the rumor which speedily 
 developed into a fact that Evelyn Minturn too was 
 dead. She had lived only an hour longer than her sister. 
 
 In rural communities where information is conveyed 
 from point to point largely by personal agencies, it is 
 amazing how news of a death will travel. If you had 
 lived in Pisgah you might have calculated almost pre- 
 cisely when tidings of the Minturn tragedy would reach 
 Moab when it would arrive at the valleys beyond 
 Moab, and when it would be recorded in the distant 
 mountains. Such a calculation might have been made 
 almost as certainly as those celestial intelligences reach 
 us of eclipses and the crossing of earth's orbit by strange 
 bodies. 
 
 A traveller, climbing a mountain trail, will leave the 
 news at a lonely hut. Hunters passing that way will
 
 ROSY 225 
 
 take it up and scatter it in various directions. A boy, 
 searching for a horse that has gone astray, will be told 
 what has happened, and he repeats it at this door and 
 that on his way home. By nightfall a thousand kitchen 
 lamps will shine on still faces which are not as they were 
 yesterday, because the thought of death is present, and 
 individuals in a thousand home circles will be breaking 
 the silences to say "I remember once, when she was 
 a very little girl . . ." or "He'll marry again, you may 
 be sure, but he'll never find another woman like her 
 who will have him," 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon when Rosy Wood- 
 ridge, standing at her front gate, was stirred by vague 
 alarm when she saw Jacob Feld approaching. She went 
 out into the road to meet him, and he began immediately: 
 "Have you heard, Rosy?" And he knew by her eyes 
 that she had not heard. "The Minturn girls," he went 
 on; "they are both dead !" 
 
 Her lips parted and she gazed at him incredulously. 
 "What!" she whispered. 
 
 He nodded his head. 
 
 He was much surprised by what followed. She stood 
 looking at him as if she scarcely understood. She seemed 
 frightened rather than grieved. And suddenly she 
 clasped her hands and thrust them out so that they 
 rested on his shoulder, and then she rested her face on 
 her arms and began to sob. 
 
 "Rosy !" he cried, "Rosy ! I didn't know you cared 
 for them so ! " 
 
 She said "It isn't that I cared for them. I think 
 it's because nobody ever cared for them. And oh, Mr. 
 Feld I'm thinking of their brother ! " 
 
 She did not remain to ask him any save the simplest 
 questions. She turned unsteadily, blindly, and went 
 back into her house.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 AUGUST gave place to September and on the moun- 
 tain nature's pageant moved onward silently, gloriously, 
 mystically. The chincapins had ripened and fallen and 
 gone; the wild grapes emerged from their hiding-places 
 as the leaves shrivelled and fell. Persimmons were ripen- 
 ing. Occasionally wild geese floated across the sky. 
 In the burnished, hidden copses on the slopes squirrels 
 played, and now and again the keenest-eyed of all might 
 catch a glimpse of a wild turkey warily feeding and ad- 
 vancing and lifting its head to listen if a twig snapped 
 a hundred yards away. 
 
 To the alien folk from the cities of the Texas plains 
 there was as yet no voice in nature to proclaim that a 
 season had ended. The sun still shone with but slightly 
 diminished splendor and its heat lingered in air and earth. 
 The winds were still from the south. The trees were 
 clad in all their fulness. 
 
 But the mountain-folk were not unaware that the 
 cycle of the year had turned. Weather-wise, they 
 marked the shortening of the days; nature-wise, they 
 heard voices, beheld portents, pictures. The habits of 
 the wild creatures of the mountain changed. They 
 seemed to listen, to reflect, to dream. Their ecstasy 
 was gone. They were old. 
 
 Even the trees had found a new song: a soft dirge 
 foretelling loss and desolation. In the stillness they 
 shivered, as if with a prophetic vision of all that was 
 to come. Even in the realm of nature the period of 
 love-making had passed, and the time had come for 
 
 226
 
 ROSY 227 
 
 reckonings, for appraisings, for the striking of final 
 balances. (The world was through with paeans; ) it had 
 come upon the time of brooding. 
 
 But if the visitors from far away had not felt those 
 mystic changes which occur in earth and sky in Sep- 
 tember, they had nevertheless learned from other sources 
 the letters from home, and the calendar that the 
 days of blissful drifting were drawing to a close. They 
 were leaving the mountain one by one or in groups, and 
 everywhere gay farewells were being spoken. The Pis- 
 gah hack bore its burden of passengers down the moun- 
 tain twice daily and came back empty. The summer 
 cottages were being closed; the Summit Hotel was be- 
 coming a place of echoes and empty halls and verandas 
 and tables. The few guests who stayed on, remembering 
 how the heat lingered in their home valleys and cities, 
 moved about almost disconsolately, trying in vain to 
 pretend that they were still quite gay and contented. 
 They had only a little while longer to remain, in any 
 case, since the hotel would close its doors when the end 
 of September came. 
 
 The Powells were among those who remained. Be- 
 tween themselves they tried to create the impression 
 that they were remaining because it was still very 
 pleasant on the mountain. But each rightly suspected 
 that the other entertained secret thoughts and motives. 
 They were acting at cross-purposes. The judge was un- 
 willing to subject his wife to the hardship of hot days 
 and nights at home, after the comforts of the mountain 
 though he was becoming impatient to be at home. And 
 Mrs. Powell studiously hid the fact that she was eager 
 to go, and cast many a furtive, anxious glance at the 
 judge, for whom she was eager to secure as many days 
 of complete rest as possible. She could not blind her- 
 self to the fact that he was aging steadily, and she knew
 
 228 ROSY 
 
 too well that he would find exacting work to do if he 
 went back to the familiar environment again. 
 
 And as yet their summer's task was undone. The 
 future of Rosy Woodridge was still as unsettled and 
 obscure as it had been to their own way of thinking, 
 at least on the day of their arrival on the moun- 
 tain 
 
 Perhaps each had begun to feel that powers higher 
 than any at their command had already ordained that 
 Rosy was to work out her own destiny in her own way. 
 Amiable and generous as she was, there was yet a strange 
 reticence about her which neither of them could fathom. 
 C-hildlike as she often appeared, she seemed to possess 
 a hidden, mature personality, and a need of deciding 
 grave questions for herself, setting at naught the plans 
 of others who would have influenced her. 
 
 As yet they had not gone forward to seize her, even 
 in a figurative sense. It had been their plan to make 
 plain and attractive the path from her to themselves, 
 to show her such comfortable kindnesses as must impel 
 her to draw nearer to them. They hoped to make her 
 love them so that her heart would be given to them, 
 perhaps unawares. And at last such was their thought 
 they would need only to get her into their house and 
 close the door on her and say "You are ours, Rosy, 
 and you shall be ours always." Time would bring about 
 what they desired. 
 
 But time had not done so. Rosy had behaved very 
 much like a bird that will come close to the cage that 
 has been set on the window ledge, and inspect it ad- 
 miringly but will not quite enter it. 
 
 Their tacit agreement that perhaps after all they 
 would be unable to do a great deal for Rosy at present 
 might have been implied in a remark of the judge's to 
 Mrs. Powell on a certain tranquil afternoon in Sep-
 
 ROSY 229 
 
 tember, after one or the other had remarked that it 
 was strange Rosy did not come to see them oftener. 
 
 "There'll come a time," said the judge, "when we'll 
 be able to leave Rosy pretty well off with fabulous 
 wealth, according to her standards." 
 
 Perhaps it was the first time he had said in so many 
 words that he meant to provide for the daughter of his 
 old friend; but Mrs. Powell replied in quite a matter- 
 of-fact tone: "Yes, of course." And then, with a light 
 suggesting a gentle taunt in her eyes, she added: "Though 
 I can't help thinking you're inconsistent, just the same." 
 
 "Eh? inconsistent?" he echoed, a bit startled. 
 
 "It seems that you are quite willing to change Rosy's 
 status, after all." 
 
 He was anxious to understand what she meant. "I 
 was thinking I'd like to know that she'll never come to 
 want," he said. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, I know. But if we're to make a rich 
 woman of her some day, how much better it would be 
 if we could prepare her a little now for the use of riches, 
 later on." 
 
 "Oh!" he exclaimed, evidently relieved. He added 
 a moment later: "I'm sure you're right in wanting to 
 take Rosy away from here. I've never really opposed 
 it, you know. I only allowed myself to be a bit senti- 
 mental in my own way. But now that the summer's 
 ending something seems to have gone from the moun- 
 tain or to be going. I don't like to think of leaving 
 Rosy here. Maybe you'll persuade her to go with us 
 after all. I'm on your side, without any reservation." 
 
 She, rather than he, seemed to see the difficulties now. 
 "I'm going to try," she said. "But I don't know. 
 There's something about Rosy a kind of proud inde- 
 pendence showing through all her other qualities which 
 makes it rather awkward to say to her in effect: 'I want
 
 230 ROSY 
 
 you to give up your home, because it isn't as nice as 
 mine, and I want you to come to me and live my life 
 instead of your own.' Still, I'm going to try." 
 
 Three days later the judge went to Little Rock. A 
 letter he had received was made the basis of his going. 
 The letter had to do with a certain case which was of 
 far-reaching importance, he explained. But after he 
 was gone Mrs. Powell had directed her maid to begin 
 packing certain things. She was sure the judge would 
 receive no more benefit from his stay on the mountain. 
 His interests had been transferred back to the city and 
 so they might as well go. 
 
 And the judge, finding that the weather in Little 
 Rock was really very agreeable, decided, when he set 
 his face toward Pisgah and Moab again, that it should 
 be for the last time that year. He would persuade Mrs. 
 Powell to go home. 
 
 He drove up the mountain in a private conveyance: 
 he had learned that the Moab hack would not be going 
 up until afternoon. And it seemed to him that he must 
 have been away from the mountain for a long time. 
 He was seeing it with eyes newly focussed: and he noticed 
 that the bench cottages had been deserted in many in- 
 stances, and that in the picturesque little yards there 
 were no dogs to bark as he passed, and no horses in the 
 stable-yards to whinney. Some of the windows of the 
 houses had been boarded up. Already the place seemed 
 quite deserted. 
 
 But he came upon Rosy presently. She was sitting 
 out on the broken wall, her hands clasped in her lap. 
 She was regarding him with a dreamy smile as if kind- 
 ness rather than joy were the essence of it. And he 
 touched the reins in the driver's hands and brought 
 the horses to a stop. He seemed to reflect an instant,
 
 ROSY 231 
 
 and then, with a word to the driver, he laboriously 
 climbed out of the carriage. 
 
 Rosy was running toward him now as if to spare 
 him the effort of getting out of the carriage; and he 
 found her quite close to him when he turned about. 
 He seemed to wish to efface the impression that he could 
 not get about easily. He put out his hand and smiled. 
 "I'm glad you are waiting for me, Rosy," he said, "be- 
 cause I was coming for you." 
 
 They moved slowly toward the house, and Rosy 
 thought how pleasant it would be to bring chairs out, 
 and sit on the porch, just as they had done so many 
 times before. But he divined her thought and said: 
 "No, I want you to go with me up to the summit. 
 I'm hoping to take Mrs. Powell back to Little Rock to- 
 morrow; and and I think she has something special 
 to say to you. Something important. But maybe you've 
 seen her since I went away?" He looked at her, read- 
 ing her eyes. 
 
 "No, I haven't," she said. She was thinking: "How 
 can I go with him?" She began to think of many dif- 
 ficulties, when in fact there were none. "If I had time 
 to dress ..." she said dubiously. 
 
 He had not ceased to smile. "What's to prevent? 
 Go on and dress. If only you'll come out looking as 
 nice as you do going in!" 
 
 She became quite excited. It would be delightful 
 to ride up to the summit with the judge. "Well, if you'll 
 sit on the porch and wait. ..." She was already hurry- 
 ing on ahead. She went into the house and closed the 
 door. She was smiling at him through the crevice of 
 the door as she closed it. 
 
 Her thoughts were rather sombre as she changed her 
 dress. She was thinking of her guest in the cavern, 
 and how he had been asleep when she had carried his
 
 232 ROSY 
 
 dinner to him only a little while ago. He had been sleep- 
 ing so soundly that she had been a little awed by the 
 silence. She had made a rattling sound with the dishes, 
 so that he would awaken. But he had not done so. He 
 had murmured in his sleep that was all. And then 
 she resolutely put him out of her mind. She must go 
 up and tell Mrs. Powell good-by, certainly. And she 
 would think of excuses to make when she came back. 
 
 She was out on the porch again in an incredibly short 
 time. The judge opened his eyes wide when she ap- 
 peared. "I wish mother could do it like that," he said. 
 "You certainly are a wonder, Rosy. And you look so 
 nice, too!" He was really delighted. 
 
 He helped her into the carriage; and she sat rather 
 stiffly in the back seat, realizing that she was a sort of 
 grand lady, for all the disguises she found it expedient 
 to wear every day. She leaned forward when he climbed 
 back into the seat with the driver to hear what he had 
 to say. And she laughed in a very grand fashion when 
 he explained: "I always ride in the front seat when I 
 come up the mountain. If I'm to be dropped over a 
 ledge several thousand feet high I want to know about 
 it in plenty of time." 
 
 And then, out of the amiable prattle there came, pres- 
 ently, the tremendous news ! 
 
 They had gone only a short distance when the judge 
 turned partly round, resting his arm on the back of the 
 seat. He had something else to say to her; and she 
 leaned forward to hear him. The wheels on the rocky 
 road made a good deal of noise. His eyes were pleasantly 
 lighted with the thought of what he had to say to her. 
 
 "It seems that you and all your neighbors all the 
 people round about here are to be very proud, from 
 now on," he said. 
 
 She waited for him to continue; and when the wheels
 
 ROSY 233 
 
 had ground their way over a particularly rocky spot 
 he continued: "It's in the Little Rock papers. It seems 
 that one of your boys the name's Minturn, I think: 
 yes, Minturn has made a hero of himself." 
 
 He faced to the front for an instant, to see if he might 
 go on without being interrupted, and he did not know 
 that a sudden tragic transformation had taken place 
 in Rosy. She almost shouted "He hasn't been killed, 
 has he?" 
 
 He attributed the loudness of her voice to the noise 
 of the wheels. He did not look around immediately. 
 "Oh, no I think not. Though you've all reason to 
 be proud in any case. He's been wounded pretty badly, 
 I believe. If I'm not mistaken he's lost an arm. I don't 
 recall the details exactly. But he's given a fine sample 
 of American grit." 
 
 There was another rough spot to be traversed, and 
 then he went on: "It seems that he went out with a 
 patrol party, pretty close to the German lines in the 
 dark, you know. And the Germans must have heard 
 them, for there was firing. Pretty fierce firing, I believe. 
 And the patrol party turned and ran toward their 
 trenches. But when they'd been back a while it de- 
 veloped that they'd left one man behind. To make 
 matters worse, the day was breaking, and they couldn't 
 go back to look for him. But this chap this Minturn 
 didn't want to let it go at that. There was a mist, or 
 a fog a veil for a man to move in. And he started back 
 over the way they had come. He found his man all 
 right wounded and helpless, but very much alive. 
 And he picked him up and started back with him. I 
 gather that everything would have been all right but 
 for a bit of bad luck. The mist seemed to be moving 
 in columns, as you might say; and along came a clear 
 space, and there was the soldier with his wounded com-
 
 234 ROSY 
 
 rade in sight of the German trenches. They fired again. 
 Maybe it was something bigger than a rifle this time. 
 And he was hit in the shoulder. He stumbled and fell. 
 But here comes the best part of it all. The fog hid him 
 again, and he got up and kept straight on. He didn't 
 stop until he got to where he belonged and then he 
 dropped, unconscious. But he'd brought his comrade 
 with him. They're both in the hospital now. It seems 
 they've both got a chance to pull through." 
 
 The road ascended sharply just there and the horses' 
 hoofs made a deafening noise among the rocks. And so 
 it was that the judge did not hear Rosy's triumphant 
 cry "Oh, glory to God he's a man, he's every inch 
 a man!" And he did not know that she clapped her 
 hands to her face to hide her tears. 
 
 It was not until the long afternoon had passed, and 
 they had had their dinner in the big dining-room at 
 sundown that the judge and Mrs. Powell found courage 
 or a suitable opportunity to speak to Rosy of their 
 dearest dream. 
 
 Mrs. Powell had never before experienced quite so 
 much difficulty in managing a perfectly artistic begin- 
 ning to an undertaking. Somehow there were no open- 
 ings, try as she might to make them. And at last she 
 found it necessary to speak plainly, almost bluntly. 
 
 "We've been wondering, Rosy," she said, "if you 
 wouldn't like to go back to Little Rock and live with 
 us." She immediately concluded that, after all, she 
 couldn't have put it any better. 
 
 The judge seemed to detect a lack of full comprehen- 
 sion in Rosy's face, for he carried the matter a step 
 further. "To be our daughter, Rosy dear now that 
 you haven't any parents, any more than we've daughters 
 or sons to comfort us in our old age. To give us back,
 
 ROSY 235 
 
 perhaps, some of the love we've given yom to many 
 years." 
 
 For the first time in her life Rosy really failed them; 
 for the first time she utterly failed herself. She looked 
 from one to the other, wide-eyed, incredulous. 
 
 "Do you mean," she began slowly, "do you 
 mean. ..." A kind of forlorn pride and joy bubbled 
 up in her laughter and rippled in her eyes. 
 
 "You must think about it, dear," interposed Mrs. 
 Powell. "You needn't feel hurried, you know. We 
 should want you to feel you were coming because it 
 would be the happiest thing you could do." 
 
 But Rosy only hung her head for a long, anxious mo- 
 ment, and then her breath began to come rapidly, and 
 her eyes were dimmed with tears. She reached out and 
 took Mrs. Powell's fine hand in both her own and drew 
 it to her cheek. "Oh, you dear lady!" she cried; 
 "but. . . don't you see? I kain't!" 
 
 She was ashamed of her weakness, then; and possibly 
 she feared she might be tempted to yield. She turned 
 away from them, rubbing her eyes. And then without 
 another word she went out of the hotel and set out rapidly 
 across the twilit lawn. And so she did not really tell 
 them good-by after all.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE Feld girls learned the news late in the afternoon. 
 Some one had brought a Little Rock paper up from Pis- 
 gah, and Jacob Feld, laboriously perusing the English 
 text, came upon the item and read it all the way through 
 in a detached manner, before he realized that it was 
 their Nat Minturn who had made a hero of himself. 
 Poor old Feld! he was reading the newspapers with 
 knotted brows during those days, for there had been 
 no word from his son of late, and he could not quite 
 conquer a fatalistic belief that Charley would never 
 come home again. He would have been grateful to 
 read that Charley had been wounded "Only just 
 crippled," was his thought, "so that I could have him 
 again and take care of him." 
 
 When he realized that the item he had been reading 
 had to do with one of their own boys he called his 
 daughters and passed the paper over to them. Perhaps 
 he felt that such a momentous statement as that in the 
 paper ought to be verified by other eyes than his own. 
 
 A moment later the girls went racing around the 
 bench road to tell Rosy, and they were greatly disap- 
 pointed to find her away from home. They encountered 
 a small group of pedestrians on their way home and 
 they stopped to announce what had happened to Nat 
 Minturn: but they discovered to their chagrin that 
 the news already seemed to be old news. 
 
 Indeed, almost every one in Pisgah and on the road 
 to Moab, and on other roads, was stopping to say to 
 every one else "Did you see what's happened to Nat 
 
 236
 
 ROSY 237 
 
 Minturn?" It was the sole topic of conversation; and 
 even those who had never known Nat, or who had be- 
 lieved that he did not have much of the right sort of 
 stuff in him, were beaming with pleasure and speaking 
 his name almost affectionately, as if somehow they had 
 acquired merit through his behavior. 
 
 There were numberless discussions of Nat from a 
 new angle. There were those who held to the old belief 
 that Nat had never given promise of turning out to be 
 a famous young fellow; and of course there were others 
 who beat about the bush and managed to say finally 
 that you could never tell. Nat had always been a mys- 
 terious kind of boy, these held. He had kept things to 
 himself. You could always suspect that there were 
 certain things below the surface. The way he had of 
 casting his eyes aside and considering when others 
 were speaking . . . one might really have known all 
 along that he was deep. 
 
 His father too assumed a new r61e in the popular mind. 
 It was a discovery which almost everybody made for 
 himself that there was a good deal more to Rufus Min- 
 turn than most of his neighbors had thought. If there 
 hadn't been, how could he have maintained the respon- 
 sible position he held without doing a lot of foolish 
 things ? It wasn't easy to be the richest man in a com- 
 munity and still leave so little to be said against you. 
 He had been underrated because a good many people 
 were envious of him it was plain enough now. And 
 it was true the world over that if a man had more money 
 or assets of any kind than his neighbors there were al- 
 ways certain difficulties in the way of knowing him in- 
 timately or judging him impartially. Minturn had 
 always been looked upon as a sort of money-grubber. 
 His wanting to run a quarry, when he had plenty of 
 other work on his hands, and when some one else might
 
 238 ROSY 
 
 have made a good thing of the quarry, had been against 
 him. But now it was plain that he possessed solid merits 
 which he had never paraded in public. 
 
 People spoke of the Minturn girls too in gentler 
 tones: the poor girls who could never know that their 
 brother had distinguished himself. And much was for- 
 given them or explained away. They had not been 
 really snobbish or consciously unkind. They had simply 
 been aware of the superior qualities they possessed. 
 They had had a reason to hold their heads high. 
 
 And finally there were those who reflected: "It's a 
 pity people haven't known Mrs. Minturn better. There 
 must be a good deal of the real stuff in her." 
 
 . . . During the afternoon the Feld girls went to 
 Rosy's door twice and called, and then went away dis- 
 consolately. Then they had to do the baking and were 
 kept at home for two or three hours and then they 
 hurried along the bench road in the twilight, Hilda 
 taking the lead and Mary following with a kind of 
 shepherd-like sedateness, as if she must be on the look- 
 out lest Hilda exceed proper bounds when they got to 
 Rosy's. She had no idea what Hilda would say to Rosy, 
 but she feared it would be something tactless or indis- 
 creet. Still, there was no use anticipating Hilda. The 
 best that could be done was to watch her closely during 
 delicate moments and be ready to change the subject, 
 or to say something to cover an embarrassing interval. 
 Both girls believed that Rosy would surely be at home 
 by this time. 
 
 It was Hilda who knocked at Rosy's door; and when 
 there was still no response they decided that something 
 must be wrong. Hilda opened the door and leaned into 
 the room while Mary cried out, "Why, Hilda!" Still, 
 she followed Hilda into the house. Both the girls felt 
 that there was a mystery of some sort in Rosy's life.
 
 ROSY 239 
 
 Mary said: "We shouldn't have come in, if she's not 
 here!" And she looked about her with sharp eyes. 
 
 Hilda retorted: "If she comes in and finds us here 
 it'll be all right, and if she doesn't find us she'll never 
 know we came in." 
 
 They tried to create the impression that they hoped 
 Rosy would hear them and come to them; but they 
 examined everything in the room before they passed 
 on into the kitchen. Then they went out the back way; 
 and as it was quite plain that Rosy was not at home 
 they looked at each other inquiringly: Hilda with a 
 certain defiance, Mary with an equal degree of habitual 
 disapproval. 
 
 And suddenly their eyes filled with wonder, dismay, 
 incredulity. 
 
 "Do you hear it?" asked Mary in a whisper; and 
 Hilda replied: "I certainly do. Do you?" Then they 
 both listened again. 
 
 The sound they had heard was repeated: a faint, 
 pleading, unplaced cry. They could not imagine where 
 it came from; yet they were sure it was not far away. 
 They advanced almost at random, Mary along the path 
 which led to Rosy's observatory, at the verge of the 
 cliffs; Hilda in the direction of the unfinished, aban- 
 doned well. When Mary turned toward her sister a 
 moment later, Hilda was gesticulating excitedly with 
 her right hand, while she held the finger-tips of her left 
 hand to her lips. 
 
 They drew together at the edge of the old well and 
 stood there, turning toward each other faces which were 
 rigid with consternation. They had both heard the 
 sound again, and they knew it came from the depths 
 of the abandoned well. They wished to look down into 
 the well, but dread of what they might see there re- 
 strained them.
 
 240 ROSY 
 
 They hurried away, moved by a common impulse 
 of horror. They did not enter the house again. They 
 moved stumblingly around the path and out into the 
 road. The stillness of the empty house, and the whole 
 slowly darkening mountain, chilled them. They walked 
 excitedly until they were on their own front porch; and 
 then they stopped with a certain chagrin, because they 
 had not seized a rare opportunity to pursue to the end 
 an exciting adventure. Why had they come away from 
 the well without looking down into it? There was noth- 
 ing to harm them. And what had they found out ? Ac- 
 tually nothing. 
 
 "We ought to tell father," said Hilda, in the defiant 
 manner of one who supposes that anything she suggests 
 will be the wrong thing. And when she went to tell 
 her father, who was around on the back veranda, Mary 
 looked after her as if she were saying: "Now you're 
 going to do it !" But she listened eagerly to hear what 
 her father would say. 
 
 "Imachination!" is what he said. He repeated it, 
 frowning "Imachination." Still, he said he would go 
 and investigate. They would have followed at a safe 
 distance, but he turned upon them gruffly. Their mother 
 would like to see what color their hair was, he said, if 
 they would go into the kitchen where there was work to 
 be done. 
 
 They went into the house and watched him through 
 a window. He went along the bench road, his feet carry- 
 ing him with habitual deliberation, though there was 
 something in his carriage, in his general appearance, 
 signifying grave concern. Hilda whispered, "He knows 
 more than he'll tell." They watched him until he was 
 out of sight. 
 
 . . . He went straight to the well; and then he 
 stood, looking casually about him. He wished to be
 
 ROSY 241 
 
 sure that he was not observed. He had been guided, 
 from the instant he entered the yard, by a despairing, 
 faint cry, sounding almost at regular intervals. Even 
 when that cry was repeated again he continued to look 
 about him in a seemingly careless fashion. But at last 
 he put aside all pretense and addressed himself directly 
 to the task of climbing down into the well. 
 
 An extraordinary change had taken place in him when 
 he emerged, perhaps fifteen minutes later. It was now 
 quite dark, so that there was no need for him to move 
 warily when he reappeared. Still, he did move warily; 
 and his eyes held a strangely introspective expression. 
 He moved away from the old well very much like a 
 guilty man; and when he had placed a considerable 
 distance between himself and the well his amazement 
 scarcely knew any bounds. 
 
 He had hoped that Rosy would return while he was 
 in the cavern. He did not wish to seem to spy upon 
 her life or affairs in any way. But she had not returned; 
 and he reflected upon her absence, and upon other things, 
 and finally he took his place upon Rosy's front porch, 
 where he sat in the dark waiting for her. He would be 
 late for supper, which would be a very good thing. When 
 he got home he could begin eating right away, so that 
 he need not say anything. 
 
 She emerged from the shadows of the bench road 
 after a time. He heard her, in fact, before he could see 
 her. She was calling back to some one seemingly to 
 some one who had accompanied her down from the 
 mountain. And her voice was resonant, bell-like even 
 triumphant. And old Feld shook his head in bewilder- 
 ment. He mused: "So care-free, Rosy? How can that 
 be?" 
 
 It had seemed to him that there were certain things
 
 242 ROSY 
 
 he must say to her; but her gay voice had a disturbing 
 effect upon him. How could he say ... no, no; he 
 could not say quite what he had meant to say. 
 
 She cried out when she recognized him a cry which 
 began on a note of alarm and ended joyously. "Mr. 
 Feld!" 
 
 "Ah, it's you, Rosy!" He was more and more at a 
 loss as to what to say to her. 
 
 She could tell that he was far from being at ease. 
 " Did you want something ? " she asked. She was frown- 
 ing slightly. It was not Jacob Feld's way to be embar- 
 rassed, or to make a mystery out of things. Yet she 
 knew very well that something of more than common 
 importance was in his mind. 
 
 He thought of a way out of what had become a pre- 
 dicament. He knew what he should say. "Have you 
 heard the news, Rosy?" 
 
 There was instant relief in her tone. "Oh, that was 
 it!" she cried. "Bless me, yes! I think everybody 
 must have heard it. People are talking of nothing else." 
 
 She could not read the expression in his eyes. "To 
 think of Nat being such a brave young fellow ! " he said. 
 
 She drew a step closer to him, trying to see him better. 
 It was growing quite dark. She did not reply. She was 
 wondering what was in his mind. There had been a 
 kind of tell-tale note in his voice. However, she was 
 much later in returning than she had meant to be, and 
 she sought to excuse herself. "I am afraid I must be 
 in a hurry," she said, moving forward a step. "I've 
 been up to the summit. I'm afraid I've been neglecting 
 my duties scandalously. The poor hens have gone to 
 roost without their supper." 
 
 He echoed the words "The poor hens. ..." He 
 seemed about to move away, and then he checked him- 
 self. "Rosy!" he said. His tone was such that she
 
 ROSY 243 
 
 abandoned whatever thoughts were in her mind. She 
 turned toward him again, and again she tried to read 
 his eyes through the deep gloom. 
 
 "Rosy," he persisted, "you know I'm not a a busy- 
 body, what they call it. No?" 
 
 "You're my good friend," said Rosy, breathing 
 deeply. 
 
 "So. Well, you know the best of us even the young 
 people have their troubles sometimes, when it's good 
 to have somebody to help: somebody that will look at 
 just one picture without wanting to see every picture 
 in the book." 
 
 "It's true," said Rosy. 
 
 "And so ... well, it's like this. I don't want you 
 to forget Jacob Feld if there's ever need of help here in 
 your house, Rosy. Trust me all you will. You know, 
 I often see you go by with your head up like a flower, 
 and I think: 'Rosy has had her troubles, but she carries 
 her head like a flower, all the same.' But if an old man 
 could help sometimes that would be a fine thing for 
 me, Rosy. If ever you need me, I mean. Eh?" He 
 was patting her on the arm ; his voice was like her father's 
 voice as it used to be when he was greatly pleased with 
 her, or when she had hurt herself. 
 
 She answered eagerly: "I'll never be afraid to trust 
 you, Mr. Feld, if that's what you mean. And I'll call 
 on you, and be grateful, when you can help me." 
 
 He turned away then and walked quickly from her. 
 He called back, "I think you ought to be in a hurry"; 
 and she was pondering this last statement of his as she 
 went into the house. What had he meant by it ? Was 
 it one of the queer things he said because he had not 
 learned to speak English in his youth, or did he really 
 mean something?
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 SHE could not quite conquer a feeling of guilt as 
 she entered the house and lit the lamp. She had been 
 gone an unusually long time. She thought: "He will be 
 very angry with me." She remembered what his de- 
 meanor had been that morning, and at noon, and things 
 which had not impressed her particularly at the time 
 now flashed before her mind as things of significance. 
 He had had scarcely a word to say to her; and there 
 had been in his silence something like complete sur- 
 render. It had not seemed to spring from a wish to be 
 disagreeable. 
 
 She recalled a memorable picture of him as he had 
 been the second day after his sisters had died and a 
 great wave of pity swept over her. On that occasion 
 he had spoken to her humbly, softly. He had taken his 
 place near the mouth of the cavern and had sat, staring 
 with brooding eyes across the distant river, and then 
 to the thread of valley road winding along on the near 
 side of the river. It had passed, at length the double 
 funeral procession. He had sat and drooped and gazed 
 incredulously. There had been glints of light struck 
 from one of the vehicles which had a highly polished 
 surface. That had been one of the hearses. And then 
 there had been another vehicle of the same type, with 
 glints of light showing where its highly polished surfaces 
 caught the rays of the sun. It was so that Fanny and 
 Evelyn had passed forever. The procession had wound 
 its way into a stretch of woods. It was gone. 
 
 Rosy had stood behind him, scarcely willing to 
 
 244
 
 ROSY 245 
 
 breathe, while he watched. Even after the last vehicle 
 had passed from sight, engulfed in the patch of woods, 
 she had not known what to say to him. She could only 
 marvel that he had not cast aside all constraint, all 
 secrecy, and gone home. She had even wanted to sug- 
 gest that he should do so. But he had said nothing at 
 all about going home. He had seemed to consider such 
 a course wholly out of the question. 
 
 . . . She lighted the fire with trembling fingers. 
 Really, she should not have remained away so long. 
 She thought to make amends by preparing something 
 specially nice for his supper. He was very fond of 
 potatoes chopped up fine with onion and baked in the 
 oven. She set about preparing this dish for him. She 
 poached eggs and made fresh coffee. And after she had 
 worked musingly for half an hour, and night had settled 
 down upon the mountain as profoundly as if it were 
 very late, she realized with sudden pallor and the lift- 
 ing of her head that she had been hearing a faint sound 
 for a long time: a far-off, intermittent sound as of a 
 nightbird in a hollow. She stood perfectly still, listening. 
 There was silence: an interminable silence, it seemed to 
 her. And then she seemed to shrink as if she had been 
 struck. She cast one hurried, comprehensive glance at 
 the things she had been preparing for supper, and then 
 she hurried away into the yard. 
 
 She was fearfully alarmed when she stood beside him. 
 He was lying down and his hands were clasped across 
 his eyes. It was plain that he had drawn covers over 
 him when he had lain down, or at some time later, but 
 now he had thrust them aside. His face was flushed. 
 She could see this by the light of the lamp on the table. 
 And even as she stood beside him he lifted himself with 
 a struggle and cried again: "Rosy!" The word was 
 long drawn out, quavering, despairing.
 
 246 ROSY 
 
 "I am here!" she said breathlessly. She did not 
 recognize her own voice, it was so changed. 
 
 He removed his hands from his eyes and looked at 
 her wonderingly. For one dreadful instant it seemed 
 to her that he did not recognize her. Then he said 
 "Rosy! Thank God! I'm ill, Rosy. I thought I should 
 die." He breathed deeply, as if a crisis had been passed, 
 and covered his eyes with his hands again. 
 
 She tried to draw his hands away from his eyes, but 
 he cried out: "Don't I can't bear to see!" 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said. Her tone was so forlorn that 
 it should have touched him. "If I had known ... I 
 went up to the summit, you know. Some friends are 
 going away to-morrow. If I had only known. . . ." 
 
 She was alarmed by the strange calm that was settling 
 over him. "Have you been ill long?" she asked; and 
 when he did not reply promptly she added "What is 
 it?" 
 
 "I thought I should burn up. I seemed to be afire. 
 I never felt so before. Rosy ! . . . I'm so glad you came 
 at last!" 
 
 She put her hand on his forehead. "Yes, you've a 
 fever," she said. She moved back a step and looked at 
 him in perplexity. She had had almost no personal ex- 
 perience with illnesses. Still, she remembered. . . . 
 
 "You want quinine," she declared. She was trying 
 to remember where her mother had kept the quinine. 
 A gleam of relief lit her eyes. "Wait!" she said. 
 
 She was gone, quickly and silently as a shadow; and 
 he was calling after her: "Don't be gone long, Rosy!" 
 
 Presently she stood beside him again, a bottle of 
 quinine in one hand and a teaspoon in the other. She 
 had placed a glass of water on the table near by. "You 
 must sit up," she said. "Shall I help you? You must 
 take this."
 
 ROSY 247 
 
 He regarded her musingly, as if her presence were 
 enough. His mind was wandering. But at last he took 
 in the squat blue bottle and the spoon. "I can't take 
 it that way," he said, with a return of his querulous 
 tone. "Haven't you got any capsules?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not," she said reluctantly. And then, as 
 if she hoped to make amends by humoring him in even 
 a very small matter, she added: "I might get some. 
 But you'll have to wait a few minutes." 
 
 She had decided to go to one of the neighbors and get 
 capsules. The Felds, first; and if they had none . . . 
 she tried to think where she should prefer to go next, 
 if the Felds could not give her the capsules she required. 
 
 She was much relieved to find that Jacob Feld could 
 supply her need. He had capsules, already filled. But 
 even in her disturbed state of mind she could not help 
 noting that there was something strange in Mr. Feld's 
 manner. It was as if he had expected her almost as 
 if he perfectly understood her predicament. He did 
 not look at her directly as she sat, waiting for Mary 
 to bring the capsules. It might have been supposed 
 that he feared his eyes might reveal certain knowledge. 
 But there was an odd expression of approval, of pride, 
 on his lips, as he sat regarding the oblong rug, made 
 of colored rags, at his feet. And she realized that Hilda 
 was regarding her searchingly, too. But then Hilda 
 always looked at you so; and it really must seem strange: 
 her coming to borrow capsules, when it was known that 
 she lived alone, and any one could see that she was not 
 ill. She was glad of a habitual placidity in Mrs. Feld's 
 manner. Mrs. Feld was like an afternoon nap: restful, 
 savoring of peace and well-being. She drew a needle 
 high above her right shoulder, and looked at the piece 
 of goods on her lap, and asked Rosy if all the people 
 were gone from the summit yet. To her the summit
 
 248 ROSY 
 
 was like a summer cloud : it had its place in the general 
 scheme of things, but it was not within her reach. She 
 was growing fleshier every year. 
 
 . . . Almost as soon as Rosy had taken her place 
 at the invalid's side again she was greatly disturbed by 
 the first question that was put to her: "Did you know 
 of anybody being here while you were gone? this after- 
 noon, I mean." 
 
 "Here?" she cried. "No, of course not!" Her 
 thought was that he must have been more seriously ill 
 than she had supposed. She knew that sick persons 
 often imagine things. "No, nobody could have been 
 here. It's quite out of the question." 
 
 He replied almost listlessly, as if he had ceased to 
 care about the fate which seemed about to overtake 
 him. "Old Feld was here," he said. "He was standing 
 just where you are standing now. He stood staring at 
 me. I saw him, and then after a while he was gone. I 
 didn't know when he went." 
 
 She regarded him intently, yet with increasing in- 
 credulity. "Did he say anything?" she asked. 
 
 He seemed to be trying to remember; but his mind 
 wandered and he did not reply at all. 
 
 She was quite sure Jacob Feld had not been there; 
 and yet. . . . 
 
 She gave him the quinine and then hurriedly held 
 the glass of water, so that he could wash it down. He 
 gulped and passed the glass back to her and after she 
 supposed that he had forgotten about the delusion that 
 Jacob Feld had been there he said: "So you see, it's 
 all up with me now. There's no sense in my staying 
 here any longer. You might as well have me taken 
 home. And when I'm well. . . ." 
 
 She responded to this with energy: "If Mr. Feld 
 does know of your being here it needn't make any dif-
 
 ROSY 249 
 
 ference. I think he's suspected all along that there was 
 something strange. . . . He's a true friend. He'll not 
 say anything, that's certain." 
 
 He looked at her with a little flash of eagerness. "Do 
 you think so?" he asked. 
 
 "I'm sure of it," she replied. But at the same time 
 she was thinking: "He must have imagined it. He did 
 imagine it, of course. Yet it seems the strangest thing ! " 
 She asked after a pause: "Was it after the fever was 
 on you?" But he was pondering anxiously and did 
 not seem to hear. At least he did not reply to her; and 
 she repeated to herself "He only imagined it." 
 
 She thought of the supper she had prepared; but when 
 she spoke to him of supper he shuddered. He begged 
 her not to speak of anything to eat. And she did not 
 urge him to eat. Perhaps it would be better for him 
 to fast for the present; and in the morning she would 
 kill a hen and make broth for him. It might be better 
 for him to eat nothing but broth for a day or two. 
 
 She left him long enough to put the supper things 
 away, and to bring her sewing; and then she settled 
 down for a long vigil. She had learned that it soothed 
 him to have her sit by the lamp and work, even if no 
 words passed between them. And now she tried to 
 impress him as a kind of restful influence ; though secretly 
 she was greatly disturbed. She thought he might be 
 better off up in the house than here in the cavern; and 
 it might be necessary to call in a doctor. And these re- 
 flections appalled her, since the things which seemed 
 necessary to his well-being were also the things which 
 would almost certainly lead to his betrayal. 
 
 He seemed to doze lightly; and when he stirred un- 
 easily and moaned an hour later she gave him quinine 
 again, and again he sank back on his bed and closed 
 his eyes. She thought she might be able to remain with
 
 25 o ROSY 
 
 him until well on toward morning; and then he might 
 be easier, and she could leave him and get a little sleep 
 herself. 
 
 It seemed to her that ages passed; and then she was 
 brought to a sudden realization that her work had 
 dropped to her lap and that she had fallen asleep, there 
 in her chair. She was disturbed by a cry of surrender, 
 of despair. "Rosy! for God's sake, Rosy! I can't 
 stand it any longer!" 
 
 She was standing beside him instantly. "What is 
 it ? " she asked. She tried to create the impression that 
 she had been awake all the time. He only reiterated 
 the words "I can't stand it!" And she came to the 
 conclusion that something must be done, after all. She 
 looked about her in despair. And now she realized that 
 the cavern was a place of stark desolation, and by no 
 means a place where pleasant fancies might be encour- 
 aged. Clearly it was no place for one who was ill one 
 whose illness might take the form of evil dreams. 
 
 She was face to face with a difficult reality. She knew 
 that a crisis in her affairs had come. And even yet she 
 could not think what it would be best to do. 
 
 She thought of Jacob Feld. She might call upon him 
 and reveal everything if, indeed, he had not already 
 discovered everything for himself. But she shrank even 
 in the moment of her helplessness from such a course. 
 What he had found out for himself he could keep a secret; 
 but if it ever became known that she had told him then 
 the responsibility of wrong-doing would be his as well 
 as hers. And their cases were not at all alike. After 
 all, he was a German in that new, unfriendly classifica- 
 tion which people had been making since the war began. 
 And persons who might forgive her for harboring Min- 
 turn would blame Feld bitterly, if it should be known 
 that he had had a share in his concealment. Most signif-
 
 ROSY 251 
 
 icant of all, she had a good reason for acting as she had 
 done a reason which she should be able to gire with 
 triumphant pride, when the time came. But what reason 
 would Jacob Feld ever be able to give? 
 
 She reasoned that it would not be fair that it would 
 be dishonorable to tell Jacob Feld everything. It 
 would be to place upon him a burden which no honest 
 man would wish to carry. She would gladly have shared 
 with him any secret which touched only her own per- 
 sonal welfare; but to involve him with her in a guilty 
 course. . . . No, she would not tell him. 
 
 She thought suddenly of Judge Powell. And it was 
 only a step from the thought of Judge Powell to the 
 realization that there was a physician up at the summit 
 hotel. There always was. There were a good many of 
 the guests who would never have come to the hotel if 
 they had not been assured that there was a physician 
 within ready call. 
 
 She drew a deep breath of relief. Going up to the 
 summit at a late hour, and getting Judge Powell out of 
 his bed, perhaps, and explaining to him that there was 
 need of a physician down on the bench these were not 
 the tasks she would have preferred, but they were all 
 possible of accomplishment, after all. 
 
 The invalid's cry again smote her ears: "Can't you 
 do anything for me, Rosy?" 
 
 "Yes, there's something I can do," she hurriedly as- 
 sured him. "I'll go for a doctor. The hotel doctor 
 ought to be there yet. If he is, no one need ever be any 
 the wiser. He needn't know why you're here. I mean, 
 it won't be like getting one of our own doctors. Those 
 city people have strange ideas, anyway. He might 
 think this is where we live. At any rate, he'll not worry 
 about what he doesn't understand. He'll see what has 
 to be done for you, and he'll go away, and that will be
 
 25 2 ROSY 
 
 all there is to it. I'll have to be gone some time, you 
 know. And you mustn't worry. You must just be 
 sure that everything will come out all right." 
 
 He listened with his eyes closed. He was wondering 
 if she really felt as confident as she seemed to feel. She 
 had almost persuaded him to believe that no new menace 
 hung over them, after all. But when he opened his eyes 
 and turned his head to reply to her she was gone. 
 
 When she passed the Felds' she tried to carry the 
 lantern on the far side of her so that she should not be 
 observed, and she moved stealthily as a mouse. It was 
 between twelve and one, and she supposed every one 
 must have been in bed for hours. Still, there was never 
 any telling when people might be stirring in the night. 
 
 It was oppressively quiet. The tiny creatures which 
 make the mountain vocal during the period of dusk 
 and for hours afterward were not to be heard. An owl 
 on some far, obscure slope screamed at intervals, but 
 the cry was as if it came from another world. She even 
 imagined she could hear the trickle of Jacob Feld's 
 spring, down in the limitless gorge into which it emptied. 
 And then she was painfully startled by the sound of her 
 own name. It came with an effect of stealthiness, of 
 persuasion: "Rosy! Rosy!" 
 
 She knew instantly that it was Jacob Feld, and it 
 came to her in a flash that he must have been waiting 
 for her. 
 
 He approached her closely, warily, whispering: 
 "There's something to do no?" 
 
 She drew back from him with an odd effect, as of one 
 who knows that her presence means infection. She 
 was repeating to herself: "I will not tell him!" But 
 she could think of no answer at all to make to him. She 
 only knew that the solemn silence of the night wrapped
 
 ROSY 253 
 
 them about. She had the thought that they two must 
 not speak aloud, lest the old mountain stir and moan 
 in its sleep. And then far away down the hidden slope 
 the owl screamed again. Above her the sky was outlined 
 nebulously against the summit.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 SHE knew presently what she should say. She tried 
 to speak calmly. "There's something I want to say to 
 Judge Powell, up on the summit. They're going away 
 to-morrow." 
 
 She knew very well that he would not question her 
 stupidly; that he would not say: "But it's pretty late, 
 Rosy. Couldn't you see him in the morning?" He 
 said nothing of the kind. His next words were: "So. 
 Well, I'm going as far as the top of the steps with you. 
 Let me carry the lantern." 
 
 He took the lantern from her hand and they set off 
 together. Where the steps began he took her by the 
 hand, much as if she had been a child; as if they were 
 both children. And as she put her hand into his she 
 said: "Dear Mr. Feld!" A sudden warmth burned 
 within her; in her bosom, in her throat, about her eyes. 
 But there were no further words between them. 
 
 Up they climbed, disturbing a cricket here and there. 
 At the landing-places they stopped to catch their breath, 
 each stopping out of consideration for the other, though 
 Rosy would much rather have gone all the way without 
 stopping. Slumbering boughs hung all about them. 
 Sometimes through openings they could see little dim 
 lights far away, in the valley, in Pisgah. Through the 
 boughs above them stars shone. 
 
 At the summit, where her way lay clear to the side- 
 walk which led to the hotel, he gave the lantern back 
 to her. And then he said, turning his eyes away from 
 hers: "There'll be some one to come back with you 
 no? You'll not want me to wait?" 
 
 "Oh, no!" she said eagerly. "You mustn't wait. 
 
 254
 
 ROSY 255 
 
 Yes, there will be some one to see that I get back all 
 right." And then she left him, hurrying away with 
 no further thought of him. At best she must be gone 
 from the bench a long time; and she feared she might 
 be needed there urgently. 
 
 There was a bright light in the hotel office, in the 
 distance. And that cheered her; that and certain sounds 
 she heard. There was a fault murmur of machinery 
 somewhere in the outhouse away from the hotel. It 
 was the motor upon which depended the electric light 
 used at the hotel and in some of the cottages. It was 
 scarcely a noise. It was so indistinct that it might have 
 been likened to a chemical in imperfect solution in a 
 glass of water; a' sediment of the day's sounds which 
 had not wholly dissolved. 
 
 However, the hotel office was entirely deserted, despite 
 the bright light, when she entered it. The register had 
 been closed, the chairs had been ranged in straight lines 
 against the wall. Surely there was no one about? . . . 
 
 And then she heard a faint murmur, like a low, be- 
 nevolent growl, away on one of the verandas. She went 
 to a door and looked out, her figure being outlined in 
 the doorway between the regions of obscurity and light. 
 She saw, little by little, figures seated over against the 
 railing: one, two, perhaps several. Then there was 
 the sudden rasping sound of a chair being pushed back, 
 and some one was approaching her. 
 
 She stepped back into the lighted office; and she was 
 waiting, a tremulous smile on her lips, when the manager 
 appeared in the doorway. His eyes were blinking in 
 the bright light. He became deeply concerned when 
 he saw her. She would not have been coming to the 
 hotel at this hour unless something had gone wrong. 
 He came close to her, bending his head to hear what she 
 had to say.
 
 256 ROSY 
 
 She perceived that he was startled; perhaps she had 
 anticipated this. She murmured hurriedly: "It isn't 
 anything very serious. But I I want to speak to Judge 
 Powell a minute, if I may." She was about to add, "I 
 have heard that he is going away in the morning/' but 
 she did not say this. The manager would know sooner 
 or later that she had come for the doctor, and she felt 
 that she should be ashamed to deal triflingly with one 
 who had always been a true friend. 
 
 "Right away," said the manager. "He's out on the 
 veranda now. We've been holding a sort of wake, 
 should you say? It's the end of the season, you know." 
 He drew a chair forward for her. "If you'll wait," he 
 added. And then he was gone. 
 
 It was Judge Powell who appeared next. Rosy heard 
 him, out in the dark, exclaiming her name as if he were 
 repeating it: "Eh? Rosy? I wonder " And then 
 }je was coming toward her, his eyes blinking as the 
 manager's had done. But all his surprise had been let 
 loose out there on the veranda. Now he simply ap- 
 proached her as if there were nothing extraordinary in 
 her appearing here at this hour. 
 
 She tried not to seem too eager. "You see I've come 
 back," she said, smiling faintly. She came to the point 
 immediately. "There's a doctor needed down on the 
 bench, and it seemed best . . . there was nobody to 
 come but me. I thought maybe the doctor was still 
 here. I don't know him, you know. I thought maybe 
 I might speak to you first." 
 
 It all seemed perfectly simple. The judge's face 
 cleared. "That was right," he said. "Yes, the doctor 
 is still here. He's been out on the veranda with us. We 
 were smoking an extra cigar to-night because it's my 
 last chance for the year, you know. I'll tell him." 
 
 He went away, and there was a murmur a little more
 
 ROSY '257 
 
 clearly outlined than that murmur Rosy had heard upon 
 her arrival; and then Judge Powell came back into 
 the office. "He's gone to get his kit, or whatever you 
 call it. He'll be ready in a minute." 
 
 He was silent then, in the way which suggests a hint 
 or an invitation. He thought perhaps she might wish 
 to tell him who it was that required a physician. But 
 she evidently did not feel the need of confiding in him. 
 She said nothing more about her mission, save that it 
 seemed suddenly to occur to her to say as if the idea 
 had come to her with no special relationship to any- 
 thing in particular: "I want you to tell me something, 
 Judge something that has to do with the law." 
 
 He smiled cheerfully. "What have you to do with 
 the law, Rosy?" 
 
 "Not very much, I'm afraid," she replied with a cer- 
 tain ambiguity. "But I want to suppose a case. It's 
 this: If a person has broken a law, and the person goes 
 and tells somebody else about it, does it make the other 
 person responsible in any way?" 
 
 The judge did not wholly cease to smile as he con- 
 sidered. He repeated her question to himself with a 
 note very like mockery yet kindly mockery. And 
 then he said decisively: "Yes, I rather think it would, 
 in most instances. Perhaps in every instance. I mean, 
 the second person would be legally obligated to report 
 the information he had obtained, or be prepared to take 
 the consequences, if it became known that he knew and 
 had not divulged his information." 
 
 She replied promptly: "I thought so." And then she 
 went on: "But if the person didn't tell another person, 
 and the other person found it out for himself, by acci- 
 dent, or something like that, then is the second person 
 bound to tell what he knows?" 
 
 The judge was now frowning. He was considering
 
 25 8 ROSY 
 
 this supposititious case. And after a moment's reflec- 
 tion he said: "In that case the second person would 
 have to deal with his own conscience. If he'd never 
 been told, and if he felt that he wasn't in honor required 
 to go to the authorities with his information, he would 
 be quite safe in saying nothing. You see, there would 
 be no way of proving that he knew. Do I make it 
 plain?" 
 
 "Perfectly," said Rosy. "And it's just what I 
 thought about it." She was nodding her head. And 
 after a moment she added: "That's all. Thank you." 
 And while the judge continued to regard her, with a 
 return of the quiet smile to his eyes, she was thinking: 
 "Mr. Feld can find out just as much as he wants to 
 so long as I don't tell him anything." 
 
 The doctor entered the office then. He came forward 
 briskly, and Judge Powell explained certain things: first 
 of all that Rosy lived down on the bench, and was 
 the best friend he had anywhere on the mountain, and 
 that she knew a way down a flight of steps that brought 
 you to the bench in just a minute or two, so that you 
 needn't go all the way around the road. 
 
 The manager and the judge stood out on the veranda 
 as Rosy and the doctor went away, and both of them 
 called out cheerfully, yet in covered tones: "Good-by, 
 Rosy!" And as long as she could hear they had not 
 turned back into the office again. She supposed they 
 would wait for the doctor to come back. And for a mo- 
 ment she felt a wave of fear engulfing her, because it 
 seemed likely that they would want to know all about 
 the doctor's patient. 
 
 But she recovered her composure instantly. She 
 thought: "Judge Powell isn't the sort of man who would 
 ask anybody to tell him anything about me, when I'd 
 had a chance to tell him myself, and didn't." And she
 
 ROSY 59 
 
 knew that whatever the doctor told them if indeed 
 he should tell them anything at all, which was doubtful 
 she need not worry, as they were not the kind to re- 
 peat a word, if they supposed it might cause her a mo- 
 ment's embarrassment. 
 
 She began to think about her responsibilities toward 
 the doctor. She had scarcely given a thought to him 
 until this instant; and now she noted with surprise 
 that he was quite a young man not at all like the doc- 
 tors she knew best and that he moved lightly, as if 
 he did not know what wool-gathering meant, and that 
 he was lifting the lantern unnecessarily high every little 
 while as if he wished to see the way better, though she 
 knew he looked at her instead of at the path before 
 them. 
 
 She was very glad to show him a cordially friendly 
 side. If she did so, she reflected, he would be less likely 
 to gossip, when he came to look back at what would 
 probably seem to him a mysterious adventure. 
 
 Still, she hoped that he would not see anything so 
 ' very strange in the fact that he was called to give medi- 
 cine to a man in a cavern. She had always understood 
 that the smart folk of the city and of distant places had 
 very amazing ideas about everybody who lived in moun- 
 tainous regions. It was their way to believe that the 
 mountain-folk were forever developing feuds, and that 
 the men often operated stills in hidden places where 
 revenue officers would not find them, and that in a gen- 
 eral way they were most careless and improvident in 
 their mode of living. She hoped the doctor would con- 
 clude that the patient to whose bed he had been sum- 
 moned to-night was just an ordinary mountaineer, living 
 in a cavern for any one of a dozen ordinary reasons. 
 
 At the top of the steps she said: "Shall I take your 
 hand?"
 
 2 6o ROSY 
 
 And he answered, after a dubious silence, and then 
 quite eagerly : " Yes, please do ! " He added : " I suppose 
 you'll feel a little safer that way?" 
 
 She smiled more broadly as he lifted the lantern again 
 that he might see her face. "I was thinking you'd be 
 more safe," she said. "You see, I know the way per- 
 fectly. But there isn't really any more danger than 
 there would be in going down any other long flight of 
 stairs." She added in a matter-of-fact tone: "We nearly 
 always hold hands when we go down the steps." 
 
 He gave her his hand as if in token of an alliance or 
 a bond, and she had some difficulty with it, reducing 
 it to the condition of a mere passive member by means 
 of which one might lead a person down a flight of steps. 
 Then, silently, they began the descent. 
 
 She was glad that he did not speak as they passed 
 Jacob Feld's house. She ventured to steal a glance at 
 the house, and she was almost sure that an unobtrusive 
 figure was outlined obscurely in the dense shade of the 
 front porch. 
 
 She drew her breath sharply when they arrived at 
 the old well. Some one had been there. 
 
 A ladder had been lowered into the well, so that the 
 descent might be made easily. And she knew who had 
 put it there; but she only said to herself: "So long as 
 I don't tell him anything, it will be all right." 
 
 "We must go down the ladder," she said to the frankly 
 amazed young physician; and then she added casually: 
 "He's down there to-night." She took the lantern from 
 his hand. "I'll go first, so you can see the way better," 
 she said. 
 
 She paused on the ladder,- because she had an idea 
 he wished to say something. 
 
 He began to speak in a pleasantly whimsical tone,
 
 ROSY 261 
 
 making a little joke of his experience. "I've often been 
 summoned to the sick," he said, "but this is the first 
 time, I'm sure, that I've ever been called to come to 
 the well I" 
 
 She smiled back at him. She was delighted because 
 he wished to make a little joke of the matter. "You 
 mustn't be too sure," she said. "There is old Mrs. Plant 
 down in Pisgah. I'm told she screams if the doctor 
 doesn't come right on the dot, twice a week and yet 
 they say she's never been sick a day in her life !" 
 
 She held her skirts in her hand, so that her feet were 
 clear. She began to descend the ladder. "Can you 
 see?" she called back to him. 
 
 "Perfectly," he said; and then he too was descend- 
 ing the ladder.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIH 
 
 His illness was pronounced to be of a nature not 
 necessarily alarming. Malarial fever, the doctor said; 
 and Rosy was praised for her good judgment in ad- 
 ministering quinine without any delay. She was told 
 that nothing could have been better. And though a 
 somewhat more complicated form of treatment was 
 substituted for the capsules obtained from Jacob Feld, 
 Rosy was left with the conviction that her own pre- 
 scription, with certain variations, was being continued. 
 
 She did not see the Powells to tell them good-by, 
 though they drove by her house the next afternoon and 
 stopped. They were disappointed to find that she was 
 not at home. They feared she might have gone up to 
 the summit to see them off; and so they went away 
 thinking of her possible disappointment, rather than 
 their own. 
 
 She was in her place in the cavern, where she had 
 
 \ begun her long period of watching. She was resolved 
 
 " to perform her duties as nurse with perfect fidelity. She 
 
 meant to convince the patient that not only her services 
 
 but her sympathies were his. She hoped to dispel the 
 
 heavy gloom from that shadowy chamber where she 
 
 and he were to fight their battle together. 
 
 The young physician had not proved at all offensively 
 curious as to the surroundings in which he found his 
 patient. Indeed, he had not referred to them at all until 
 Rosy had asked him frankly if the patient's condition 
 required that he be removed to some other place. He 
 had doubtless read something of anxiety in her eyes 
 as she asked the question, and his reply had been of a 
 
 262
 
 ROSY 263 
 
 rather equivocal sort. The patient was not too ill to 
 be removed, he said; and change, as a general thing, 
 was advantageous. But on the other hand there was 
 no real objection to be urged against the present loca- 
 tion. It was sufficiently airy and quite dry. It had 
 also the advantage of being quiet. 
 
 The doctor had also speculated, more to himself than 
 for Rosy's benefit, as to the geological nature of the 
 cavern. He had said something about its extraordinary 
 altitude, if it were to be considered as having been caused 
 by the action of water, though he supposed that hi former 
 ages a subterranean stream might have flowed here, 
 and that at some subsequent time it had found a lower 
 level and outlet. He thought it more probable, however, 
 that the vast mural chamber might have been of volcanic 
 origin. He thought it might be an interesting subject 
 for study to a geologist; and then, reverting to more 
 immediate matters, he had said: "And these powders 
 . . . they are to be given every hour until the fever is 
 gone, and resumed if the temperature becomes ab- 
 normally high." He had looked at Rosy with a kind 
 of twinkling intentness when he gave his instructions, 
 and was obviously pleased to note that she compre- 
 hended perfectly. 
 
 She had begun to be quite elated by the thought of 
 her efficiency when shortly before noon the next day 
 her pride was suddenly humbled. 
 
 Her patient had been sleeping soundly at breakfast- 
 time, and she had thought it unwise to disturb him. 
 But when the dinner-hour drew near he was awake; 
 and she asked, in her most cheerful tone: "What would 
 you like to have for dinner?" 
 
 He only stared at her, in response to her question; 
 stared at her incredulously, and with an expression of 
 deep repugnance on his face. And then he said, with
 
 264 ROSY 
 
 weak rebellion: "Don't! Don't mention such a thing! 
 I couldn't eat!" 
 
 She said meekly: "Very well." She went to the house 
 and had a hasty luncheon herself, and then she returned 
 to the cavern, prepared to perform certain household 
 duties there. She peeled apples, which she meant to 
 preserve; a large basketful. And to the man who 
 watched her, between moments of dozing, she began 
 slowly to typify much that was most precious in life 
 as she sat demurely with her lap filled with apples. He 
 watched her, with latent affection stirring faintly in 
 his eyes, as she turned a rosy apple round and round, 
 its rosiness giving place to a creamy whiteness as the 
 peel lengthened. She hummed little improvised songs. 
 When he thought of something to say she looked up 
 from her work and smiled and replied to him with only 
 one thought actuating her: that she must seem to agree 
 with whatever he said, ancUbe interested. It all seemed 
 tranquil and pleasant. Great sunlit spaces were visible 
 through the cavern's opening. A kind of refined light 
 filled the cavern. 
 
 Still, Rosy was thinking rather doggedly along a cer- 
 tain line. Paraphrasing a sentiment from The Princess 
 she said: "He must eat or he will die." And she was 
 trying to decide, not how to prepare food for him, but 
 how to induce him to eat it when it was prepared. 
 
 When she had finished peeling and coring her apples 
 she said: "I must go into the house a little while. May- 
 be you can sleep?" And he assented drowsily. 
 
 She hurried into the kitchen and put the apples on 
 to stew; and then she went out into the yard with un- 
 mistakable definiteness of purpose. She carried a hand- 
 ful of shelled corn. She called the chickens and induced 
 a flock of them to enter the barn. She entered after 
 them, closing the door behind her.
 
 ROSY 265 
 
 There was a great outcry among the fowls presently; 
 and after a minute or two she emerged from the barn 
 with a hen under either arm. 
 
 She hurried away in the direction of the Felds'; and 
 when Jacob Feld saw her coming he smiled as one does 
 at the repetition of a familiar, pleasant experience. He 
 knew why Rosy was coming and just what she would 
 say, though he did not permit her to know that he antic- 
 ipated her. He waited for her to state her case, just 
 as if he did not know what she would say. 
 
 "I want to trade you a couple of hens," she said. 
 "I've got to kill a couple, and I don't want to kill mine, 
 you know. These are laying, I'm sure." Indeed, one 
 of them was singing rather faintly. "I thought if you 
 had two that are that have got mean dispositions, 
 you might trade. It seems a pity to kill a hen that's 
 laying; and, besides, a person feels almost like a can- 
 nibal, eating their own chickens. You know I have 
 had these ever since they ever since they were eggs." 
 
 He took the two hens from her, his face puckered 
 with good humor. "I think I've got the very hens you 
 want," he said. "There's two that have found a dust- 
 ing-place in the flower-bed. They've ruined the four- 
 o'clocks altogether." He looked at her anxiously to 
 be sure that these strictures constituted, in her mind, 
 a sufficient indictment. 
 
 They appeared to do so; for she said promptly: 
 "Well ... if you'll bring them to me when you can. 
 One at a time, you know. I'd like to have the first one 
 right away, and the other, say, day after to-morrow." 
 
 She hurried home then, knowing very well that a 
 hen would be forthcoming almost in no time, and that 
 it would be all ready for plucking. 
 
 . . . She made an excellent bowl of chicken broth 
 that afternoon, and toward six o'clock she carried it,
 
 266 ROSY 
 
 steaming in a most appetizing manner, down into the 
 cavern. But she was destined to receive no reward. 
 Her patient behaved most disagreeably. 
 
 "Will you take that stuff away?" he demanded. 
 "Didn't I tell you I wouldn't eat anything?" 
 
 She grew rigid with amazement and anger; but im- 
 mediately she reminded herself that she was dealing 
 with an invalid. She spoke almost humbly: "But you 
 know you can't go without eating!" 
 
 "I know I'll not eat anything now!" he retorted. 
 
 She took the broth away. She was afraid she tossed 
 her head slightly as she disappeared. But she took 
 counsel with herself. The good broth must be put 
 away so that it would keep until the next day. No doubt 
 her patient would be glad to have it then. 
 
 But it developed that he would not have it the next 
 day neither at noon nor in the evening. He seemed 
 to be placing himself under restraint as he said: "You 
 must not annoy me with such things. I am sick ! " And 
 so the broth had to be thrown away, after all. It would 
 not keep until another day, she decided. 
 
 This was the more disquieting, since her patient was 
 certainly not mending. He suffered less from high tem- 
 perature; but his energy was failing in the most alarm- 
 ing manner. By the third day the slightest movement 
 seemed to overtax him. He dozed more and more; and 
 when he lay awake he seemed not really awake. He 
 lay with his eyes wide open; but he seemed not to see. 
 He did not even hear her when she spoke to him, unless 
 she took special pains to attract his attention. 
 
 And so the second hen came from Jacob Feld's and 
 was made into such a bowl of broth as would have 
 brought lions in out of a forest. But again the imperious 
 patient waved it away. He even whimpered now. She 
 was simply trying to annoy him, he said.
 
 ROSY 267 
 
 She stood staring at him in alarm. "Indeed, I am 
 not," she cried. "If you would only eat a little! I 
 can't bear to think of you lying here starving. And 
 that's what you're doing, you know!" 
 
 He would not relent. "If you don't stop pestering 
 me," he said, "I'll get up, sick as I am, and go away. 
 And it will be your doing, too ! " 
 
 So, sadly and silently she took the broth back into 
 the house. She put it away, to be offered again the next 
 day. But on the next day she went about the matter 
 in a different fashion. She heated the broth and took 
 it to the cavern about noon. "You're to eat some of 
 this broth," she said quietly. She did not give him an 
 opportunity to reply. "We'll have no more baby busi- 
 ness. You're to eat. I'll not let you be until you've 
 done as I tell you to do. Two spoonfuls! that's all 
 I ask of you. But that much you shall have if I have 
 to sit here all afternoon." She rilled the spoon half full 
 and held it toward him with a steady hand. "Come !" 
 she said. 
 
 He whimpered helplessly. "Well, I will," he said. 
 He was yielding for her sake rather than his own or 
 he was yielding in the hope of getting rid of her 
 importunities. 
 
 She put the broth aside long enough to help him to 
 lift his head. She half rilled the spoon again and held 
 it to his lips. 
 
 He swallowed the broth perfunctorily; but imme- 
 diately an amazing transformation occurred. A delicious 
 force seemed instantly to penetrate his whole body. He 
 seemed to burn with a beneficent flame. He looked 
 into her eyes, pathetically amazed. "It tastes good!" 
 he said. 
 
 She gave him the second spoonful. She replaced the 
 spoon in the bowl and let it remain there.
 
 268 ROSY 
 
 "More! "he said. 
 
 But she shook her head firmly. "Not now," she de- 
 clared. "At supper- time you shall have a good deal 
 more. But no more now." 
 
 And so she put him on the road to speedy recovery. 
 
 It began to be apparent to her, however, as the days 
 passed, that he was not completely recovering, as she 
 hoped he would do. Something of the old nervous energy 
 he had possessed was not being restored to him. He 
 found it easy to sit for hours without moving, almost 
 without thinking. Nature had adjusted him to his 
 environment, to his necessities, and she had done her 
 work completely. Days came when he felt a desire to 
 explore the cavern which had become his home, and 
 which had proved to be almost limitless in dimensions. 
 He had found it possible to descend from his own level 
 to various succeeding levels, through corridors and cham- 
 bers which at unexpected turns brought him to new 
 openings in the face of the mountain; and this recrea- 
 tion was the more enticing because there were occasions 
 when he seemed to be hopelessly lost, and long moments 
 of patient search were needed to find the way by which 
 he had emerged from his starting-point. 
 
 Thus something of his bodily vigor was restored to 
 him; but to Rosy's dismay there was no corresponding 
 return of mental vigor. He was no longer rebellious. 
 It seemed to her that he had ceased to give any thought 
 at all to his future. He had undergone some sort of 
 dumb, surrendering process which she could not under- 
 stand. He had less and less to say as the days passed; 
 and when he spoke it was to utter some sentiment of 
 indifference or cynicism or bitterness. 
 
 His dull mental processes began, more and more, to 
 react upon the girl who was required, so much of the
 
 ROSY 269 
 
 time, to be his companion. She found it increasingly 
 difficult to be cheerful, to seek for the brighter side of 
 things for bis sake. The time came when both used to 
 sit for hours at a time without uttering a word: Rosy 
 sewing or performing such of her kitchen labors as she 
 could transfer to the cavern; the man reading fitfully, 
 or dozing, or lying with his head propped up on his hand, 
 gazing dreamily out at the sky and the valley. 
 
 Rosy had recorded an unsuspected growth during 
 the past few months. She found herself summoning 
 the undeveloped Rosy of yesterday before her and 
 putting stern and searching questions to her. Why 
 was it that she had permitted herself to become involved 
 in problems such as no girl had ever heard of before? 
 She could now see clearly the full significance of certain 
 things she had done. She had afforded shelter to a draft- 
 evader and that was a crime. Why should she have 
 been led so easily into the commission of that crime? 
 
 In seeking for the answer to that question she ceased 
 forever to be altogether the primitive creature who had 
 found the mountain creeds all-sufficing. Of course there 
 was something to be said for that unwritten law among 
 the mountain-folk who learn the lesson, over and over 
 again, that life is a cruel taskmaster, and that the number 
 of unmerited sorrows which must be borne is sufficient, 
 and that man-made sufferings are a superimposition 
 which have their basis as often as not upon narrow and 
 limited intentions, rather than upon a real search for 
 equity. She might still argue that in offering her hut 
 as a refuge to the man who sought concealment even 
 though she had known the whole truth as to his motive 
 she had been arraying herself against the powers that 
 prey and are vengeful, rather than against those which 
 seek to cure and make whole. 
 
 But now she was able to grasp the fact that if life
 
 27 o ROSY 
 
 at its best must be imperfectly organized, it is never- 
 theless well to accept those forms of organization which 
 have been thought out with earnestness of purpose, 
 and which are better, at least, than the exercise of un- 
 restricted individual choice. 
 
 Her reflections brought her to the new attitude in 
 which she stood toward Jacob Feld. She had clearly 
 involved her old friend in a problem which he would 
 certainly have avoided, if he had been left the oppor- 
 tunity to choose. Grave injury might yet come to him 
 through her, try as she might to shield him. How could 
 she shield him if Nat Minturn chose some day to tell 
 the whole truth ? 
 
 And there was yet another of whom she thought with 
 dark foreboding: that lover who would come back from 
 across the sea some day who, it seemed, might now 
 come home sooner than she had expected. He would 
 come and look into her face and into her heart anew. 
 He would require much; he would have much to give. 
 Should she be able to face him with unflinching eyes? 
 Could she hope by any argument to convince him that 
 she had done well in hiding one who had been unwilling 
 to perform his duty, while better men were dying for 
 his sake ? 
 
 Nanny had come to typify to her the highest phase 
 of chivalry, of manly honor. She had begun to measure 
 all things by his conduct, by his standards. What could 
 she say to him when he came back and learned what 
 she had done? 
 
 4 Unconsciously she had begun to wear a new spiritual 
 garment in which pride was the warp and woof. She 
 had been proud enough in days past, as she knew very 
 well: proud of her father's good reputation, of the friend- 
 ship of the Powells, of the kindness of her neighbors. 
 But all this was as nothing compared with her pride in
 
 ROSY 271 
 
 the love she had won from one who had proved himself 
 a brave soldier who had not remained at home to speak 
 evil of his neighbors, but who had gone in response to 
 high necessity to do his simple duty. She must not 
 forget that his honor had become hers, now or would 
 become hers some day and that she must cherish it 
 in all that she did or thought. 
 
 She looked up from her sewing and realized suddenly 
 that it was becoming too dark for her to sew any more. 
 She glanced with a kind of reluctance toward the bed. 
 A little while ago her patient had been lying in a com- 
 fortably relaxed position, his eyes bent upon the jagged 
 expanse of sky through the cavern's mouth, and upon 
 the opaline tints which warmed the sky-line where it 
 touched a distant forest. But now he was asleep. 
 
 She tried to shake off the thought that the sight of 
 him was becoming hateful to her. She said to herself, 
 "He is ill"; but her other self retorted: "He is no longer 
 ill." She realized how constantly she had tried to mani- 
 fest toward him as much kindness as might not be mis- 
 understood. But it had come to pass that she could 
 not look at him without thinking of her own misconduct, 
 viewed in the pitiless light of a man with a soldier's 
 courage, a lover's jealousy. 
 
 . . . She arose and made her escape stealthily, 
 eagerly. She went into the house. It would be time 
 to prepare supper presently; but she could not bear to 
 think of household duties now. She opened her front 
 door and stood looking out at the empty road. 
 
 Her heart urged her to turn toward the spring 
 toward Jacob Feld. It would be infinitely restful there, 
 and her old friend would have something to say to her 
 which would make the ills of the day seem little and 
 far removed. Just to be near him, if they said nothing
 
 272 ROSY 
 
 at all, would help her. They would listen to the trickle 
 of the water down in the hidden gorge; there would 
 be the voices of birds and insects. They would listen 
 to those little sounds dreamily, and almost get their 
 placid messages. The mountain had become a place 
 of engulfing loneliness. 
 
 But she shook her head resolutely. For his own sake 
 she must not permit old Jacob to come any nearer to 
 her than he had already come. It seemed to her that 
 she had destroyed the innocence of their old relation- 
 ship. She turned in the opposite direction, along the 
 shadowy road, wholly deserted and infinitely lonely. 
 The droning voice of a locust accentuated the silence. 
 She had no hope nor any fear of meeting any one. 
 The summit was now wholly deserted. Even the bench, 
 in this direction, had lost the last of its tenants. 
 
 A little way around the bench road she climbed up 
 a steep slope, tempted by a bush weighted and dark 
 with wild grapes. She gathered a quantity of the grapes, 
 tearing off long sprays, heavily laden. She looked away 
 through the vista of trees, toward fragments of evening 
 sky. Her eyes were dreamy as she lifted the first grapes 
 to her lips. 
 
 They were delicious. She had not known how she 
 had craved them. They were the first she had had that 
 year. She had been too much absorbed by other things 
 to think of the pleasures which had always meant so 
 much to her during the days of her girlhood, which now 
 seemed so far away, though they had ended only yester- 
 day. 
 
 She retraced her steps until she was before her own 
 yard before the unfinished wall her father had built. 
 Again she climbed a little way up the slope, but this 
 time with a different purpose. She meant to find a seat 
 on the sun-warmed Sphinx Rock, which lifted its rugged
 
 ROSY 273 
 
 head away from the main structure of the mountain 
 as if it were listening for the voice of eternity. 
 
 She was seated on the warm rock presently, her legs 
 folded before her like those of a heathen goddess. She 
 was pressing the purple grapes to her lips. She removed 
 a bronze-red grape-leaf from the stem she held and ad- 
 justed it dreamily in her hair. She forgot to eat from 
 the bunch of grapes and began to dream as if she had 
 caught the spirit of the rock and must perforce listen 
 with it. She held the grapes in her hand as if they were 
 a symbol of something that life had in store for her: a 
 wine which could thrill her and bring new laughter to 
 her lips. 
 
 The voices of the tiny insects of the mountain became 
 more assertive. No longer startled by human feet cer- 
 tain shy and invisible creatures began a weirdly rhythmic 
 chant. 
 
 Various inhabitants of the wild began to move about 
 her. A lizard with jewels for eyes and a lithe back ar- 
 mored in dusty green shot up the rock and paused, and 
 shot forward again, almost at her feet. A squirrel 
 bounded from limb to limb over her head. And then 
 . . . she felt her bosom shaken with compassionate, 
 emotional laughter: a mother opossum crossed the road 
 near her. The purposeful creature bore six miniature 
 opossums on her back. They sat in two rows, three 
 facing the other three, and all holding tight to the rough 
 tail which was thrust backward within their reach. It 
 was all like a newer sort of ark, bearing a degree of inno- 
 cence that knew no fear of flood helpless living things 
 that were assured because they had something to hold 
 to. ... The mother opossum disappeared in the bushes, 
 gone on her way in quest of food or drink. 
 
 And then the song of the insects lost its rhythm and 
 there was a scattering away of all living creatures save
 
 274 ROSY 
 
 Rosy. A man's tread disturbed the stones on the road 
 and a moment later Jacob Feld appeared. 
 
 He saw her and stood looking up at her. He was 
 blushing faintly, and smiling. And then, without wait- 
 ing for her bidding without noting her prohibitive 
 frown he climbed the slope and seated himself on the 
 rock by her side. 
 
 "You're not afraid, then, that the Sphinx Rock will 
 fall some day?" he asked. 
 
 "Not until its time comes," she replied. 
 
 He seemed to accept this as a perfectly logical answer. 
 "I don't know as I could name anything you're afraid 
 of," he added. 
 
 "I'm beginning to be afraid of of many things," 
 she declared. She said no more, but into her eyes came 
 images of the things she feared; and he caught only an 
 impression of vague distress, without guessing quite 
 what she had in mind. He had no doubt that she was 
 thinking of the things he had been thinking of. And 
 true to his habit he put aside needless words and said 
 precisely what he had meant to say when he sought 
 her. 
 
 "Rosy," he began, "now that he's sick " He turned 
 his eyes away from her. With some difficulty he con- 
 tinued: "Now that he's sick, maybe you'd better let 
 me take him home." 
 
 She gave him one swift glance and her face seemed 
 to harden though with resolution, perhaps, rather 
 than resentment. 
 
 The critical moment had come, she perceived. Now 
 or never she must save her old friend from himself. 
 
 When she did not reply to him promptly he concluded 
 that she was dumb because of embarrassment or in- 
 ability to decide. He added: "I could take him to his 
 father, you know. I could come at night with a wagon.
 
 ROSY 275 
 
 I could make his bed in the wagon, and cover him up 
 and take him home." 
 
 He could not at all understand the strange light which 
 leaped into her eyes. And he was dumbfounded by what 
 she did. She flung the wild grapes from her and got 
 to her feet. "I'm going home, Mr. Feld," she said. 
 "And, please understand, I've got no idea what you're 
 talking about." She moved a little way apart from him 
 and paused and looked back. "You understand, don't 
 you ? And, Mr. Feld I think for a while you and I ought 
 not to talk to each other any more. Not until . . ." 
 She seemed unable to complete that sentence. She 
 went half sliding and half running down the slope; and 
 staring after her in pained amazement, old Jacob saw 
 her enter her house. She had not once looked back.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THERE came at last the day of the great good news 
 for Rosy. 
 
 It was on a Saturday, and she had decided that she 
 ought to go into Pisgah in the afternoon to deliver eggs. 
 She might have asked Jacob Feld to take them for her, 
 but she would not do so. 
 
 She thought it might be fair for her to spend as much 
 of the forenoon as possible in the cavern; and she took 
 her work with her and went there quite early. She began 
 to sew; and it might have seemed that she had not a 
 thought save those which had to do with the work in 
 her hands. But for a considerable time she thought as 
 she had done on many a previous occasion of the great 
 generosity of Jacob Feld, who had actually proposed 
 that he be permitted to share her crime with her, in 
 order that she might be relieved of a grievous burden. 
 She mused: "He would have taken him home, if I'd 
 let him!" And again an unfathomable light burned 
 in her eyes. She could not be grateful enough to the 
 old man, to whom trespasses of every kind were abhor- 
 rent, yet who had offered to take up her cross with her, 
 and lessen her load. It was a sort of gallantry which 
 had very deep foundations, she thought. And it pleased 
 her to think that if she knew men who were afraid to 
 do the things they ought to do, she knew a greater 
 number who were not to be frightened who thought 
 of what was right in a broad way, and not of what was 
 discreet or agreeable. 
 
 She realized presently that her companion had had 
 almost nothing to say to her since she had entered the 
 
 276
 
 ROSY 277 
 
 cavern, and she began at length to observe him curiously. 
 She could see that he had something on his mind. He 
 had been pacing back and forth, stopping at each turn 
 to look out across the valley, and then advancing into 
 the cavern moodily, with puckered brows. 
 
 She pretended not to notice him; but when at length 
 he went to his bed and sat down on the edge of it, facing 
 her with a seemingly definite purpose, she let her sew- 
 ing rest on her lap and looked at him encouragingly. 
 
 "The winter will be coming on before we know it," 
 he began. 
 
 It must have been something in his tone, she sup- 
 posed, which made her think that perhaps he had come 
 to some momentous conclusion perhaps to walk forth 
 from the cavern, into the light of day, to accept whatever 
 fate or punishment awaited him. And in a flash she 
 realized that she should hardly wish to restrain him 
 now. That soldier in France ... he had made his 
 quality known, now. Surely he had vindicated him- 
 self ! And perhaps his work as a soldier was finished. 
 Even if the letter of the law held him guilty when he 
 came back, how greatly he had triumphed ! He had 
 done all that he could do. It was Minturn's turn to 
 play a man's part now, if it were within his power to 
 do so. And yet ... if she could only devise some way 
 of saving Zeb from any further shame or punishment ! 
 She replied to Minturn's remark 
 
 "It's not very far off," she assented. 
 
 "And I suppose I'll have to spend the winter here, 
 too." 
 
 She pondered for a moment. "Something may 
 happen, you know," she said presently. 
 
 He shook his head. "And of course it will be a hun- 
 dred times worse down in this hole in winter than in 
 summer."
 
 278 ROSY 
 
 She resumed her sewing. He didn't mean to give 
 himself up, then, after all. "You'll not have to be so 
 careful in the winter," she said. She was thinking that 
 she could almost wish she knew how to ask him to go. 
 But she could not do that. She had encouraged him 
 to remain as long as he could be of use to her. She must 
 be hospitable to him now as long as he wished to re- 
 main. She glanced at him and continued: "You know 
 what a difference there is in the seasons in the way 
 people live, I mean. In the summer you seem to live 
 in the world to be a part of the world. But in the 
 winter you live in your house, and you seem to be only a 
 part of your house. Your life is your own, in the winter- 
 time. You are more alone." She turned the garment 
 on her knee and examined it thoughtfully, and then 
 she continued: "You'd be surprised to know how the 
 mountain has changed already. The people are all gone. 
 After awhile we can go out together, after dusk, and 
 look for wild grapes. And persimmons; they'll be ripe 
 before we know it. And nobody will see us." 
 
 She thought to cheer him, but she perceived that 
 she was only adding to his perplexity. He shifted his 
 position nervously, looking away from her at nothing. 
 At length he said uneasily: "We used to talk of getting 
 married, Rosy!" He was flushing faintly. 
 
 She assumed a very tranquil manner. "It was just 
 idle talk," she said. 
 
 She was surprised by the note of relief in his voice: 
 "Yes, that was it!" He pondered a moment and then 
 added: "Though I was serious enough at one time, Rosy. 
 I must have felt that I owed you a great deal. I feel 
 that way yet." 
 
 "Yes?" she replied. She was taking long, steady 
 stitches; and he did not know that a burnished light 
 was dancing in her eyes.
 
 ROSY 279 
 
 "And you seemed so lonesome," he added. 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "But I mean to pay you yet, Rosy, for what you've 
 done for me. I shall not be mean about it." 
 
 Her eyebrows became arched, but the long stitches 
 were not disturbed. "How do you mean, pay me?'* 
 she asked placidly. 
 
 "It's very simple. I've had my board and lodging 
 here. I can send you money some day. Of course 
 I can't promise just when." 
 
 "You needn't promise at all," she said, rearranging 
 the garment on her lap. "I can't speak very plainly; 
 but if you owe me anything, I owe you something too. 
 Maybe more than you owe me. We'll call it what 
 do they say? an even break. But you mustn't say 
 anything again about paying me money. It doesn't 
 please me at all." 
 
 He could not bring his eyes to rest on her face now. 
 He was still flushing faintly. "We can both see that 
 it never would have done now," he continued. 
 
 "Our our being married? No, of course not." 
 
 "But you're a good girl, Rosy, just the same. You'll 
 get a good fellow one of these days. He'll be a 
 lucky fellow, too. You've got a world of common 
 sense . . ." 
 
 She waited, and then ventured: "Even if I've got 
 rather plain ways?" 
 
 He smiled with relief. "And you're not to blame for 
 that never having had any more chances than you've 
 had . . . but I haven't offended you, have I?" 
 
 She had arisen with a kind of ominous stillness, fold- 
 ing her sewing and pushing back her chair. 
 
 "Oh, no !" she protested, looking to see that her sew- 
 ing materials were intact. "I must go into the house, 
 now. That's all. I've got to go to Pisgah this after-
 
 2 8o ROSY 
 
 noon to take the eggs. I must do certain things in the 
 house." 
 
 He stared after her as she went away. He thought: 
 "She is disappointed, poor thing!" 
 
 She encountered no one on her long drive down the 
 mountain that afternoon; and so it was that the sight 
 of the town, prosperously astir on the chief market-day 
 of the week, was a much needed relief to eyes that were 
 becoming accustomed to look too much upon solitude. 
 
 She proceeded slowly down the main street, lined on 
 either side with vehicles, in search of an opening into 
 which she could drive. The afternoon sun flooded the 
 rural scene, metamorphosing it into something almost 
 glorious. There were many homely noises up and down 
 the street. There were men and women ready to salute 
 Rosy as she proceeded on her way. She nodded and 
 smiled at them, and continued to look for a suitable 
 stopping-place. 
 
 And finally, when she had stepped from her seat and 
 made her way to the sidewalk, she found her way inter- 
 cepted momentarily by persons who were passing. She 
 heard her name called, and she recognized a number 
 of girls with whom she had gone to school long ago. 
 
 The girls looked at Rosy as if from a new angle. They 
 took in the heavy basket she carried in her hand. They 
 were inclined to be kind, yet they could not resist the 
 temptation to be patronizing. She was the girl from 
 the mountain, the poor girl; and they were representa- 
 tives of their world of fashion and wealth. They were 
 dressed rather showily. They displayed delicate furs 
 about their throats and smart little tailored jackets. 
 They were dressed much too warmly for the day. They 
 asked Rosy how she had been getting along; and pres- 
 ently there was an interruption.
 
 ROSY 2 8x 
 
 A man entered the group, almost with an effect of 
 forcing his way. It was Mr. Minturn; and he was stand- 
 ing there, putting his hand out to Rosy. 
 
 He seemed in a mood quite foreign to his disposition. 
 "Well, Rosy," he said, "any more word from that sol- 
 dier son of mine?" He held her hand, which she felt 
 she could not refuse him, and went on: "That's the 
 sort of boy to have, I tell them. While a lot of others 
 are still talking about going, or wondering when they'll 
 have to go, he's over there in the thick of it. I tell them 
 if they were all like my boy the war would be over be- 
 fore now." 
 
 Rosy had been trying to free her hand. She said 
 uncomfortably: "I haven't had a letter lately." They 
 were standing in front of Goldman's dry-goods store, 
 and she sought relief by seeming to be much taken with 
 a wire frame clad in a hideous calico dress. She knew 
 that a group of persons had stopped to hear what she 
 would say to Mr. Minturn who had heard his boastful 
 references to his son. 
 
 She managed to slip away before long. The post-" 
 office was next door, and she made a pretext of being 
 anxious to see if she had any mail, though she had in- 
 tended to deliver her eggs before going into the post- 
 office. Of course, she had meant to stop into the post- 
 office later. She had hoped there might be a letter for 
 her; and the service to Moab had been discontinued. 
 
 There was a letter! And she was so lost in specula- 
 tion as to what it would prove to contain, and in her 
 joy at receiving it, that she had to be spoken to twice 
 before she took the papers quite a number of them 
 which the clerk was handing out to her through his little 
 window. 
 
 In a corner of the post-office where she might be com- 
 paratively unobserved she opened her letter, and it
 
 282 ROSY 
 
 seemed to her that the whole world burst into song as 
 she read the magic lines: 
 
 "I am back in the States. I am coming to Pisgah. I 
 am coming to Moab."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THERE were other brief sentences in that letter, all im- 
 portant in their way, but the words which were stamped 
 in golden letters on her mind were / am back in the States. 
 I am coming to Pisgah. I am coming to Moab. They 
 grew enlarged before her eyes as she emerged from the 
 post-office, her newspapers under her arm, her basket 
 in her hand. 
 
 She was scarcely aware of the picture which Pisgah 
 presented: the thronged Main Street, with its vehicles 
 wedged on either side, with here and there a driver 
 threading his way along the intermediate space, just 
 arriving, it might be, or more likely setting out for home. 
 She had no ears for the cheerful, homely noises: the 
 whinnying of horses, the hailing of men and women 
 by other men and women across crowded spaces. She 
 scarcely knew that the sun was shining brilliantly and 
 that through the open spaces of the town she could see, 
 lying clearly outlined and blue in the distance, the moun- 
 tain where her home was. He was in the States again, 
 and he was coming home ! 
 
 And then she recalled the minor sentences in his letter: 
 he had come back with an injured comrade; they had 
 both been discharged from the hospital at the same 
 time. And he had promised to spend a few days with 
 his comrade in a town in New Hampshire somewhere. 
 There would be a few days to spend there before he 
 should turn his face toward home. But he would be 
 with her soon; certainly before the end of another week. 
 And then they would talk together and try to decide 
 what he ought to do. 
 
 283
 
 284 ROSY 
 
 What he ought to do ? . . . And then she remembered 
 that he would be coming home, as he went away, a fugi- 
 tive from justice. That, very likely, was what he meant. 
 What he ought to do ... oh, surely he ought not to 
 be required to do anything now ! He had done enough ! 
 
 Yet her conception of the law was that of the typical 
 mountaineer that it was a relentless thing, a machine, 
 taking no account of individual merits, but pursuing 
 its way blindly, by rule. 
 
 She scarcely knew how she transacted the rest of the 
 business which had brought her to town, or how she 
 had taken her place hi the ramshackle little buggy, and 
 tightened the reins, and began the journey home. 
 
 She was well up the mountain before she really re- 
 gained control of herself; and then it came to her that 
 the news she had received, joyful news that it was, 
 brought her also sudden fearful responsibilities. There 
 were things she ought to do before he came to her, and 
 stood in the doorway with his hand stretched out to 
 her, ready to claim her. 
 
 She ought to be alone in that hour; and not seemingly 
 alone, but really so. For months she had seemed alone 
 to those who sought her in her house; but now she was 
 saying to herself: "When he comes there ought to be 
 no one . . . the cavern too should be empty." 
 
 Little lines gathered in her forehead as she ascended 
 the mountain. Many difficulties were presenting them- 
 selves. There were things to be done things which 
 it would be almost impossible to do, it seemed. And 
 yet as she pondered, troubled, her heart never quite 
 ceased to sing; and above the chorus of perplexed 
 thoughts there was one clear voice proclaiming: "He 
 is coming home he is coming back to me!" 
 
 . . . There was yet a little daylight left when she 
 reached home. She drove the horse into the lot and
 
 ROSY 285 
 
 removed the harness with deft fingers, hanging it on 
 its peg in the shed. Her whole being radiated a new 
 vitality as she entered her house. 
 
 She paused just inside the door, startled, because 
 there was movement of some sort in the kitchen. She 
 heard the rattle of the stove-lid. "Are you there?" 
 she called out sharply. 
 
 There was a reassuring response: "I knew you'd 
 be tired after your long drive. I'm only making the 
 fire." Minturn appeared in the doorway, the stove- 
 lifter in his hand, a streak of soot across his face. No 
 one would have taken him for an invalid now. Even 
 his habitual lassitude seemed to have passed. His face 
 was lean, but there was a faint tinge of color in his cheeks. 
 "You know I ought to do a little something to help, 
 Rosy," he said, with a degree of humility which she 
 had long missed in him. 
 
 "I'm glad you made the fire," she said cheerfully. 
 "I'm glad you felt you needn't be afraid to come into 
 the house, too. I don't see that you need to stay out 
 there all the time now." She moved her head vaguely 
 to indicate the old well. 
 
 They were quite cheerful as they sat down to supper, 
 though each realized that a final estrangement had taken 
 place between them that they were farther apart than 
 they had ever been before. Rosy had her own jubilant 
 thoughts which she jealously guarded; and as it hap- 
 pened, Minturn, too, was thinking darkly, yet not with- 
 out hope, of his future, and of a plan which he had never 
 yet put into words. 
 
 He sat down by the light after supper and opened 
 the newspapers which Rosy had brought up from Pis- 
 gah. He opened them all and straightened them out 
 before he settled down to read; and he noted that in
 
 286 ROSY 
 
 addition to copies of the Pisgah Argus there was a Little 
 Rock paper which hadn't that fresh appearance of a 
 newspaper which comes direct from a publishing plant. 
 It had been read before. He examined it. The name 
 of Judge Powell was scribbled along one of its margins. 
 And then he noted that a certain item had been sur- 
 rounded by a pencilled line. 
 
 He read, at first idly, and then with extraordinary 
 eagerness. He dashed all the papers from his lap and 
 leaped to his feet. "Rosy !" he cried, "Rosy !" 
 
 She had been stealthily reading her letter again, in 
 the kitchen. She appeared almost guiltily in the door- 
 way. She could not think what could have brought that 
 eager light to Minturn's eyes. He was fairly dancing. 
 "It's come, Rosy!" he cried, "the end is in sight!" 
 
 She drew closer to him, looking at him wonderingry. 
 He was a changed being. He seemed a radiant, manly 
 fellow. And then he began to explain. 
 
 "Rosy," he said, "Nanny is back." He pointed to 
 the newspapers on the floor. "It's in the Little Rock 
 paper. He's among the arrivals on a ship that's landed 
 at New York." 
 
 "Well?" she asked, a little blankly. 
 
 "Well . . . it's NatMinturn that's back, you know!" 
 
 She began to frown delicately. "What do you mean, 
 Nat?" she asked. 
 
 He was smiling nervously. "Look here, Rosy," he 
 said, "suppose I were to walk into my father's house. 
 Not to-night, you know; but say in a day or two from 
 now. What would it mean? Why, that I had come 
 back from the war. Nobody need to know exactly how 
 I got home. I'd come home quietly. That's how it 
 would be reported. That would be the end of it." 
 
 "But you're not wounded," said Rosy, with a singular 
 lack of enthusiasm.
 
 ROSY 287 
 
 "The newspapers get things wrong as often as not. 
 I could say I hadn't really lost an arm. It needn't be 
 supposed that I'd have to show my wounds or scars 
 to everybody." 
 
 She was leaning against the door-casing, plucking at 
 her lower lip and looking at the floor. Presently she 
 lifted her glance a little blankly. "And and Zeb?" 
 she asked in a lifeless tone. 
 
 "Perfectly simple, Rosy," he said. "We must reach 
 Zeb you must. You must tell him not to come home. 
 He'll hardly dare come anyhow. But that's not all. 
 Here's the good part. I'm going to help him. If he'll 
 agree not to come back, and never to let anybody know 
 . . . you know what I've in mind, Rosy ! I'll make 
 everything right for him. I'll put it in writing. I'll 
 take my oath. I'll do whatever is necessary to make 
 it certain I can't go back on my promise. And I'll make 
 him rich really rich when the tune comes. And in 
 the meanwhile I'll send him money; all I can get hold 
 of. My father'll not be mean, now. And I'll work if 
 it's necessary. Don't you see, Rosy? It'll be the mak- 
 ing of Zeb. It will save him as well as me ! " 
 
 A silence fell between them; and during that silence 
 Minturn realized that somehow he had blundered. Rosy 
 was looking at him intently. Her color was coming 
 and going. And finally her eyes began to blaze; her 
 arms contracted, her fingers closed. She was trying 
 to speak; and when she could shape her thoughts her 
 voice was a tense whisper. 
 
 "Nat!" she began, "Nat don't! Don't make me 
 hate myself as well as you. Let me go on believing, if 
 I can, that I helped a poor creature who was unfortunate 
 not one that was too low for any one's contempt." 
 She paused an instant, breathing deeply, and then she 
 continued: "Oh, you you . . . to think that you could
 
 288 ROSY 
 
 see a good man abused and forsaken, and want to trade 
 on his misfortune! To think that you are willing to 
 let him pay the price, while you while you are willing 
 to carry home the bacon for yourself!" In that moment 
 she couldn't think of any less inelegant form in which 
 to express her thought. "To think that he's gone half- 
 way around the world, among strangers, to help stop 
 injustice and one of his boyhood friends should be willing 
 to rob him here at home! Oh, shame! shame!" She 
 lifted her hands to her cheeks to keep her face from 
 trembling. Tears hung on her lashes, but she had no 
 time to weep. Her rage arose to a higher pitch. "Do 
 you think because he's always had to work for every- 
 thing he got that he's the kind of a man you can buy? 
 Is that what it's done for you your having more than 
 any other boy within a dozen miles of Pisgah ? Has it 
 made you think that you can go to market and buy a 
 Zeb Nanny to suit your whim ? Keep him away ? No, 
 I'll not and you'll not. He's coming home. He's 
 coming here. He's coming up the mountain, for all 
 the laws in the land. Let the laws go ! He's coming, 
 and he'll be a hero, and he shall have a wreath like any 
 other hero, if there's none but me to put it on his head ! " 
 
 She turned and leaned against the door-casing, hiding 
 her face on her arms. 
 
 Minturn stood staring at her in amazement. ' ' Rosy ! ' ' 
 he murmured, "Rosy!" 
 
 She paid no attention to him. After a moment she 
 went back into the kitchen. He sat down and gathered 
 up the scattered newspapers. He tried to shake off the 
 effect of Rosy's denunciation, to regain the conviction 
 that his mind worked more accurately than hers. It 
 was to be expected that a woman would become the 
 victim, occasionally, of emotional storms. What he 
 had suggested was merely a matter of simple common
 
 ROSY 289 
 
 sense. It wasn't as if he had been to blame for Nanny's 
 misfortune. 
 
 He clung to that thought. That was the gist of the 
 matter. Little by little he regained his composure com- 
 pletely. He even worked his problem out to a satis- 
 factory conclusion without reference to Rosy's aid. 
 He would wait until Zeb came. Zeb would come 
 stealthily, in all probability. And he would lay his 
 plan before Zeb, who would see the great advantages 
 he could reap from it. Yes, that was the proper thing 
 to do. He would watch secretly for Zeb. He would 
 say nothing more to Rosy. 
 
 And Rosy, sitting at her kitchen-table at that moment, 
 her smouldering eyes staring at nothing, suddenly sat 
 up with perfect erectness. Her hands came together 
 ecstatically. She had thought of the great solution. 
 The solution had come to her with a name which was 
 flashed into her consciousness in a really uncanny manner. 
 The name was that of Judge Powell and she couldn't 
 have told to save her life what had made her think of 
 that name just at that moment. But she drew a deep 
 breath and whispered to herself: "Oh, how could I 
 have been so stupid as not to have thought of it be- 
 fore!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE solution of Rosy's problem involved a trip to 
 Little Rock, which she decided to make the very next 
 day. Now that she knew what to do she felt that there 
 wasn't a moment to be lost in the doing of it. 
 
 She arose from her place at the table and looked about 
 her ponderingly. There were a good many things to 
 be done in preparation for that trip. She must see that 
 Minturn had food provided for him while she was gone. 
 She would have to be gone a day and a night and the 
 greater part of the next day. He would object to her 
 going for so long a time but she couldn't help that. 
 
 She went into the other room, where Nat sat by the 
 light in a sprawling posture, lost in the perusal of the 
 newspapers. 
 
 "I've something rather surprising to tell you," she 
 said. She tried to speak as if there had been no dis- 
 agreeable words between them. 
 
 He put his newspaper aside and looked at her with 
 only the faintest show of interest. 
 
 "I'm going to make a trip to the Rock," she said. 
 Then, because he seemed so woodenly indifferent, she 
 feared she might lose her temper again; and she turned 
 and went back into the kitchen, intending to decide 
 what food she would have to prepare before she should 
 be able to go away. She knew that Nat was lan- 
 guidly following after her, but she turned to her work- 
 table and to certain parcels which she had brought up 
 from Pisgah. She wondered why it was that nothing 
 ever seemed to arouse him, why the things which meant 
 
 290
 
 ROSY 291 
 
 much to her should mean nothing to him. She con- 
 tinued: "You know I've never been there, though I've 
 friends -who've often asked me to come. I'm going to- 
 morrow and I'm not coming back until the day after. 
 You'll be able to get along that long, won't you?" 
 
 He replied spiritlessly: "What you going to the Rock 
 for? ... I'll have to get along, I suppose." 
 
 She felt her antagonism to him rising again. What 
 a mean creature he was, to be sure, that he could speak 
 and behave as if he had not just betrayed the greatest 
 baseness! "I can't tell you what I'm going for," she 
 said, " though you needn't fear it's anything concerning 
 you. It isn't." 
 
 He smiled faintly, derisively. "Going to the Rock 
 to sell eggs?" he asked. 
 
 She did not reply to this. She soon ceased to think 
 of him. She put away the delicacies she had bought for 
 him, without any regret that she had been a little ex- 
 travagant in buying them. She began to sing softly, 
 dreamily, in a broken fashion. She worked vigorously 
 and steadily for two hours, stocking the cupboard with 
 food for him. She was aglow with energy and happiness. 
 
 She hoped he would go away to his bed in the cavern 
 before she had finished her work in the kitchen, but he 
 did not do so. And then she decided that it did not 
 matter whether he went or remained. 
 
 She went into the other room, seeming not to know 
 that he regarded her with an idly speculative glance. 
 She got out various garments and looked at one and 
 then another. She emptied the grass suitcase which 
 her father had bought years ago on an occasion when 
 he was going down to Little Rock. She inverted it and 
 thumped upon it vigorously. 
 
 The noise seemed to arouse her guest anew. "What 
 are you doing now, Rosy?" he asked.
 
 292 ROSY 
 
 She was down on her knees, and her cheeks were 
 pinker than usual from exertion and excitement. "I'm 
 getting ready to go to the Rock," she said, leaning back 
 on her heels and regarding him impatiently. " Didn't 
 you understand? I'm going to the Rock to-morrow." 
 
 He flushed dully. "Oh and you're packing. Ex- 
 cuse me, Rosy I didn't understand." He seemed then 
 really to try to interest himself in his newspapers. 
 
 She thought: "He couldn't always have been so stupid 
 as that." It occurred to her that perhaps even yet she 
 did not realize quite what a trying experience it was that 
 he had been passing through. Her mind was divided 
 between impatience and compassion. She asked her- 
 self: "What does a woman do when she marries, and 
 finds she has got to go through life always with a man 
 who gets to acting like a stick, and sits around talking 
 stupidly ? She'd be required to spend his money as fast 
 as he made it, so he'd have to keep at work all the time." 
 
 Then it occurred to her that she had not thought 
 how she should get to Pisgah in the morning. If she 
 drove her own horse, how should she get it back ? And 
 yet she couldn't walk down the mountain, carrying her 
 suitcase. She should want to get to Little Rock look- 
 ing her best. Moreover, the thought of the horse in- 
 troduced a new difficulty. Who would feed and water 
 the horse yes, and the chickens during her absence? 
 
 Her purposeful manner deserted her. Her body re- 
 laxed; her hands fell idly to her sides. She came to 
 the conclusion that life was an extremely complicated 
 affair. And then she thought of Jacob Feld again as 
 she always did when difficulties overtook her. And 
 her eyes beamed again. She could call upon Jacob Feld 
 and he would be running no risk at all in serving her 
 in this instance. 
 
 She went to find him immediately; and when he saw
 
 ROSY 293 
 
 her through the gloom (he was sitting on his front porch, 
 smoking his pipe) he came forward to meet her. 
 
 "Well, Rosy?" he began; and it removed a great 
 load from her heart to hear him speak in the old familiar 
 way as if nothing at all had happened. She thought 
 how surprised he would be when she told him she meant 
 to make a trip to the Rock. 
 
 Still, he did not exclaim when she told him the great 
 news. He only said quietly: "And you wanted me to 
 drive you down to Pisgah, maybe no?" 
 
 "Yes, I wanted to ask you to do that and another 
 thing too. I thought maybe you'd feed for me while 
 I'm gone. You know there'll be nobody for me to leave 
 at all." She spoke almost sharply as she uttered the 
 last words. She also looked at him in what she conceived 
 to be a really bold manner, but it was too dark for him 
 to see this. 
 
 "I'll do that too," he replied. He spoke in a perfectly 
 matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 "I'll be ready early," she went on. "I want to leave 
 on the noon train. Can you manage that?" 
 
 "Yes, Rosy," he said tranquilly. "That won't be 
 no trouble at all." 
 
 When she awoke the next morning rapture clothed 
 her like a shining garment. She was wide-awake all 
 over the moment she first opened her eyes. It seemed 
 that her very body rejoiced that it was alive. It was 
 as if the world had been newly created, for her. She 
 was about to enter upon a great adventure, and she 
 knew she had the courage and the eagerness with which 
 all great adventures should be faced. 
 
 When she had dressed her every movement express- 
 ing a new intensity of feeling she went to the door 
 and opened it, as if to verify the impression that the
 
 294 ROSY 
 
 world was wonderful and perfect in every one of its in- 
 finite details. The sun seemed to greet her as one chosen. 
 The forest about her seemed to exclaim, "Ah ha!" 
 as if the very trees knew that her great day had come. 
 The Sphinx Rock might have seemed to be pondering 
 this morning on her affairs, which had suddenly attained 
 the highest plane they had ever known. 
 
 She felt a kind of freedom which was new to her. It 
 is true that she had been quite free while her parents 
 were yet living but she had lacked wings then. To 
 go entirely around the bench, or to climb to the summit 
 these were long flights. To go to Pisgah perhaps a 
 dozen times a year what more could she have dreamed 
 of? To her Pisgah had represented the great world, 
 since it had marked the limits of her knowledge. 
 
 But now she was going to pass through Pisgah, just 
 as those visitors to the summit had done all these years. 
 She was going to touch Pisgah only as one touches the 
 stones of a ford; and when she had crossed her ford 
 she should look back triumphantly, and then the great 
 flight would really begin. There would be trains to 
 travel on; there would be strange faces to see, strange 
 voices to hear. And at the end of it all there would be 
 Little Rock, and Judge Powell and Mrs. Powell in their 
 home, and her extraordinary mission in which she was 
 to determine the very destinies of human souls. 
 
 . . . Jacob Feld did not wait for her to come. He 
 drove up to her door. He had timed his arrival just 
 right. Rosy was nervously thrusting a pin into her hat 
 when she heard him call "Whoa!" to his horses; and 
 she emerged from her door immediately, closing it be- 
 hind her and locking it with a certain ostentation, as 
 if she were saying: "The house is empty now." 
 
 She handed her suitcase to her old friend and climbed 
 up beside him. She glanced at him furtively as he tucked
 
 ROSY 295 
 
 the lap-robe about her. She felt sorry that certain bar- 
 riers had arisen between them. She felt that they were 
 of her own making, in part not of his; though the 
 most insurmountable of them all was to be attributed 
 to powers beyond both of them greater than both of 
 them. She wished to correct the impression she had 
 made when she declared they ought not to talk to each 
 other any more; but she did not mention the matter 
 because she knew very well that he would not remember 
 her words against her. 
 
 There were moments when she could not help thinking 
 forlornly of the evil complication in which her life had 
 become involved. Jacob Feld knew what it "was that 
 she had done and she wished she could know just what 
 he thought about it. She imagined or perceived 
 that he seemed to believe there was a certain humor in 
 the situation. And she could not help resenting this. 
 
 She decided to be on her guard constantly as to their 
 conversation as they drove down the mountain; but 
 it soon appeared that there was no need for her to do 
 so. It was clear that Feld did not intend to become at 
 all confidential. He spoke of the most general things.' 
 He did not seem disposed to talk very much about any- 
 thing. He seemed to wait for her to speak, if she wished 
 to do so, prepared to listen without interruption. She 
 became quite at ease before long. After all, there was 
 no need of communication between two very good friends. 
 The rapture of the earlier hours of the morning returned 
 to her, though perhaps in a more subdued form. 
 
 She made nothing at all of the fact that they were in 
 Pisgah, along toward noon. She had already caught 
 the glow of wider horizons; and when he asked her if 
 she had any business to attend to there she calmly re- 
 plied that she had not. She looked down the street 
 almost disinterestedly when he checked his horses to
 
 296 ROSY 
 
 be sure of what she wished to do; and then they drove 
 down the incline between gullied banks, onto the pon- 
 toon bridge which spanned the Arkansas. She had 
 never crossed the bridge before; and she felt that under 
 ordinary circumstances it would have been an epoch- 
 marking event to watch while the long series of barges, 
 one after another, passed behind them, to the tune of 
 constant jolts as the wheels passed over the connecting 
 spaces. 
 
 Her eyes became fixed on the little station on the far 
 side of the river, where a tiny engine, linked to a single 
 passenger-coach and a baggage-car, already emitted 
 smoke and steam as proof that it was fully prepared 
 for its journey. The narrow-gauge line was only five 
 miles long; and at its terminus was the station through 
 which the express-trains ran to the city. 
 
 The little engine emitted a greater quantity of steam, 
 and Rosy was thrilled by the unfamiliar sound. She 
 felt it was highly improbable that the engine would 
 wait for her though Jacob Feld assured her that it 
 would not stir until the Pisgah coach came over; and 
 that vehicle he had seen standing before the Pisgah 
 hotel, waiting, when he crossed the river. 
 
 They drove up to the platform and stopped; and 
 then Rosy realized with a pang that the time of com- 
 radeship was over and that from now on she must 
 travel alone. She took her old friend's hand in parting, 
 and almost involuntarily she said, as if she were proffer- 
 ing a form of thanks: "You know, I'm going down to 
 the Rock to try . . . because I want to to make some- 
 thing right that isn't right now." 
 
 She concluded almost helplessly; but old Feld nodded 
 reassuringly. "I know you're going to do as near right 
 as anybody could, Rosy," he said. 
 
 She did not fully realize what she said or did during
 
 ROSY 297 
 
 the next moment or two; but presently she knew that 
 Feld was driving back across the pontoon bridge and 
 that she was standing on the little platform alone. 
 
 Negroes were unloading bales of cotton near by, and 
 shouting when their horses stirred. Already she had 
 reached a point where the world's work was going on. 
 She said to herself, "I am a traveller!" and she did 
 not mind being rather conspicuous as she stood on the 
 platform when the Pisgah coach rumbled up to the 
 station presently. 
 
 There was a moment of excitement almost too great 
 to be borne when she went aboard the passenger-coach 
 and took her seat and drew her suitcase close to her, so 
 that she should take up as little room as possible. She 
 could scarcely repress her wish to talk to some one 
 to any one when the bell clanged a time or two and 
 the train began to move. But certain native qualities 
 stood her in good stead, and she attracted only passing 
 attention from the other passengers as she looked out 
 of the window, hiding her widening eyes from those 
 who looked at her. 
 
 She seemed to have entered still deeper waters at 
 the junction, where she left the miniature train with its 
 miniature engine and stood waiting with the others 
 until the great express came rushing into the station. 
 And then she found herself, with the others, in a greater 
 coach, indescribably handsome for all the dust it had 
 gathered, sitting among persons who were strange to 
 her, not only by chance but by the set design of long 
 generations of development. She saw women whose 
 dresses were costly but whose faces were blank with 
 tedium. And she could not help thinking that this show 
 of weariness must be in part affectation. To her these 
 new experiences were comparable only to riding in the 
 sky in a golden chariot.
 
 298 ROSY 
 
 She listened with hidden eagerness and profound bliss 
 to the murmuring voices around her; voices employing 
 a language which was oddly different from her own, and 
 intonations which were more skilful and strange than 
 the words themselves. These were people of the great 
 world, which had always been far away from her. She 
 occasionally tried to catch the expression in these per- 
 sons' faces with much the same feeling of awe a poor 
 astronomer might experience in looking for the first 
 time through a great telescope. 
 
 She was supremely happy. She felt that she should 
 like the journey to last forever. She could not under- 
 stand the eagerness with which those other persons 
 greeted the announcement, late in the afternoon, that 
 Little Rock would be the next stop. There was a sudden 
 awakening. The porter appeared with a brush in his 
 hand. A powerful voice made an awe-inspiring procla- 
 mation: certain persons were to change cars, the voice 
 said, for Memphis, St. Louis, Texarkana, Dallas, Fort 
 Worth there were many other names. The voice re- 
 peated the proclamation, which died away finally to 
 the sound of a door being banged to. And Rosy thought: 
 "Some of these people will go to Memphis, and some to 
 St. Louis, and some to other places, and they will never 
 ride on the same train again." It seemed to her a solemn 
 thing to contemplate. 
 
 She got up, agitated, fearful that she should be un- 
 prepared to do her part; but when she realized that 
 the train was still thundering along at a high rate of 
 speed she sat down again, tensely waiting. But she 
 did not again let go of her suitcase. 
 
 The train was crossing a bridge ! The waters swirled 
 far below her against the breakwater. There were other 
 bridges up and down the river, incomparable structures, 
 miracles. And after a while there was a sudden lurching
 
 ROSY 299 
 
 of the coach, and then a cessation of movement, and 
 the travellers began to file out of the car. 
 
 Through the coach-window she could see, high above 
 her, a street where a maze of cabs and other vehicles 
 moved to and fro, where a great clamor of sound arose, 
 where activities of strange, countless kinds formed a 
 chaos into which it would have seemed quite fatal for 
 any one to enter. 
 
 Persons coming behind her in the coach waited for 
 her to lift her suitcase into the aisle after her. She 
 moved resolutely along toward the exit.
 
 CHAPTER XXXH 
 
 ROSY'S first impression of the city was that it was 
 a splendid, benevolent force, moving in her direction 
 to render homage and service. In company with a score 
 of other passengers she was swept away from the train- 
 yards and up a flight of steps to a region of platforms 
 and exits; and when she had extricated herself from 
 the tangle of strangers in which she had been caught 
 for the tune being, she paused just an instant in inde- 
 cision. Joyous greetings were taking place all about 
 her. There were friends to meet some of those other 
 passengers; there were aged women with white hair 
 and shining eyes, and children who waited eagerly to 
 be greeted after their elders had been greeted. It seemed 
 to Rosy that travelling must be, on a small scale at least, 
 like going to heaven: a period during which grudges 
 and frailties were forgot, and perfect kindness reigned. 
 
 And then she found herself confronted by a man in 
 uniform who seemed to have been waiting for her and 
 for no one else. 
 
 She addressed him with perfect confidence. "I have 
 come to see Judge Powell," she said. "Will you tell 
 me where he lives?" 
 
 She did not consider it at all remarkable that the man 
 in uniform knew, without stopping to think, just where 
 Judge Powell lived. He turned partly round and pointed. 
 "You go to that corner there and take a South Main 
 Street car," he said. He went with her a little way along 
 the platform. He repeated his instructions, still point- 
 ing.
 
 ROSY 301 
 
 And when she had reached the corner which he had 
 pointed out to her she came upon another man in uni- 
 form. She had made a mental note of the words "South 
 Main Street," and she asked this other man in uniform, 
 "Do I get the South Main Street car here?" and the 
 officer seemed beamingly grateful to her for asking him. 
 He seemed to take complete possession of her. He said: 
 "Yes, miss." And looking toward a distant corner he 
 announced cheerfully: "Your car's coming now." And 
 he took her suitcase and moved with her toward her 
 car a moment later, and helped her to the platform, and 
 placed her suitcase at her feet. 
 
 She did not forget to thank him; and yet it all seemed 
 to her quite what she might have expected. She did 
 not know how much of her story was written in her 
 shining eyes and blooming cheeks, nor how entirely 
 lovely she was. 
 
 She addressed herself to the conductor now. "Will 
 you let me off at Judge Powell's house?" she asked; 
 and she deposited her fare in a box, as she saw other 
 passengers doing. Again she saw nothing remarkable 
 in the fact that one to whom she applied should know 
 where Judge Powell lived. 
 
 "You get off at Gaines Street," said the conductor; 
 and in response to a momentary obscurity of expression 
 in her eyes, he added: "I'll let you know." And she 
 took her seat near the conductor, and held her suit- 
 case in her lap, and managed to keep the conductor in 
 mind, and in the range of her vision, too, without quite 
 seeming to do either. 
 
 Twenty minutes later she perceived that the conductor 
 meant to speak to her. She turned friendly, almost 
 beaming, eyes upon him, and he said: "The next stop's 
 yours. You go in that direction." He jerked his thumb. 
 "Judge Powell lives in the next block." He cogitated
 
 302 ROSY 
 
 an instant, and then he told her in which house from 
 the corner the judge lived. And she said "Thank you " 
 again, and was quite unconscious that she was being 
 served in a really exceptional manner. 
 
 She stopped involuntarily and drew her breath rather 
 sharply when she reached the house which had been 
 designated to her as the judge's. Perhaps for an in- 
 stant she was really overawed. Something like surprise 
 was the sensation of which she was aware; and she stood 
 in her place a moment trying to adjust her mind anew 
 before proceeding. 
 
 It was not because the house was quite large and 
 elegant. She would not have expected to find that Judge 
 Powell lived in a mean house. Its roominess and quality 
 were simply in harmony with his character. But there 
 was a sort of severity, a quality of exclusion, an aloof- 
 ness, which she could not reconcile with the man who 
 viewed life so kindly. The echo of some long-forgotten 
 legend of sophistication came back to her. City-folk 
 who might be ever so gracious when they met you in 
 the country were likely to stare at you and pretend to 
 have forgotten you completely if they encountered you 
 on their own ground. 
 
 But she put aside this thought almost before it was 
 definitely shaped. The Powells were not that kind of 
 people. Somewhere in that impressive structure, with 
 its round corner tower topped by a sort of fool's cap 
 of red tiles, there was a room, she knew, in which Judge 
 Powell would insist upon being himself, no matter how 
 he might alter his bearing to harmonize with the other 
 rooms. Possibly he might pretend, in every room but 
 one. But in that one room, she knew, he would look 
 up at her if she could find him there and say, "Well, 
 Rosy!" and make a place for her to sit down by him,
 
 ROSY 303 
 
 and be so easy-going that she shouldn't think of fearing 
 him. He would have a room where he might entertain 
 people who could not feel comfortably at home in any 
 other part of the house. She was sure of it. 
 
 She paused only long enough to get the picture of 
 closed windows and drawn blinds, between magnolia- 
 trees and under the lofty boughs of ancient elms; and 
 then she advanced along the brick walk, through rows 
 of chrysanthemums just coming into bloom, and up to 
 the steps of the white portico. 
 
 She was still hopeful that a window would be raised 
 and that Mrs. Powell would make herself visible. But 
 the house might have been deserted for all the evidences 
 of life there were to be discerned from the outside. There 
 was one dark moment when she asked herself if the 
 family were away from home, and what she should do 
 if no one came to let her in. And then she looked at 
 the immense door, with its scrollwork and glass, and 
 wondered how one was to knock on such a door. The 
 simple panels of the doors to which she was accustomed 
 were not in evidence. But as she looked, a small wooden 
 appurtenance with concentric circles and with a white 
 disk in the centre met her searching eyes, and common 
 sense told her that it was certainly there to be touched. 
 She was confirmed in this belief by the fact that the 
 white disk gave when she touched it; and she waited 
 in a condition of pleased suspense to see what would 
 happen. 
 
 The door was opened presently; and Rosy's pleased, 
 smiling face was met by another face: that of a girl 
 of her own age, perhaps, who made her think somehow 
 of the poor Minturn girls, since she looked at her with 
 an effect of scarcely seeing her. She wore an apron; 
 but there were no other tokens of homeliness about 
 her and even the apron was much too small and neat to
 
 3 o 4 ROSY 
 
 suggest household toil. She looked at Rosy as if a door- 
 way was merely a place through which questions were 
 to be asked and answered and not by any means a 
 place of entrance. 
 
 "I want to see Mrs. Powell/' said Rosy; and there 
 was a quality in her voice which seemed to convey a 
 definite fact to the girl in the apron. 
 
 "Will you come in?" she asked; and when she had 
 closed the door, after Rosy had entered, she added: 
 "What is the name, please?" And a moment later 
 Rosy was standing in the dim afternoon light of the re- 
 ception-hall, with vague vistas of strange objects about 
 her, and a harmony of soft, rich colors in her eyes, 
 and a kind of subtle perfume in her nostrils. 
 
 She had been told to be seated; but for the moment 
 she would not venture toward a chair. She grasped 
 the fact that a rug of a texture like fine grass was be- 
 neath her feet and that there were spaces where the 
 floor, like a mirror, was bare. And there was a fireplace 
 and a stairway with dim, delicately colored light filter- 
 ing down toward her; and a vast, shadowy room to her 
 left, with articles of furniture which possessed a strange 
 glow and fragility and curved outlines. But strangest 
 of all was the silence: a dream-like absence of sound 
 which made this room and the others seem like a glade 
 in fairy-land a place where mortal might enter only 
 to intrude. 
 
 And then there was a soft rustle of sound and a move- 
 ment on the stairway, and in the next instant Rosy 
 heard a joyful voice exclaiming: "Why, Rosy dear 
 child ! " And then she knew that Mrs. Powell was stand- 
 ing close to her, and seizing both her hands and beam- 
 ing upon her with a lovely friendliness which could not 
 have been mistaken any more than sunshine can be 
 mistaken.
 
 ROSY 305 
 
 They went up a flight of stairs together; and Rosy 
 realized that she was getting into a region of more light, 
 and a diminished silence, and of furniture which seemed 
 somehow less like a fastidious amateur's collection. A 
 dog appeared in a doorway an overgrown young collie 
 which had been admitted to the house at last to succeed 
 another dog that had grown old and died. It mani- 
 fested no excitement, despite its youth, but straightened 
 its hind legs while it reached far out with its fore paws, 
 with a downward sweep of its silken body, and yawned. 
 Then it looked at Rosy lazily and with a tentative in- 
 terest, bringing its fore paws back to the perpendicular. 
 
 It seemed that it was on this floor that the family 
 really lived, save at meal-times and on special occasions. 
 Mrs. Powell ushered Rosy into a room that seemed al- 
 most to be smiling with tranquil joy, and led her to an 
 engulfing soft chair by an open window with a long elm 
 bough swaying outside. 
 
 "It's so good to see you here," she said, adjusting 
 a blind and choosing a seat for herself. She looked at 
 Rosy smilingly and with only a hint in her manner to 
 indicate that she wondered why the guest had come 
 without letting them know. She thought of something 
 to say about what she had been doing when Rosy 
 came, perhaps. It was something pleasantly trivial 
 like the music of an orchestra before the first word of 
 the play is spoken. 
 
 Rosy adopted a perfectly frank course when the pre- 
 lude of reassuring words was finished. "I have come 
 to see the judge," she said. "There was something I 
 had to decide and a certain trouble I was in ... I 
 wanted to talk to him and get him to tell me what I 
 ought to do . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Powell was silent only long enough to indicate 
 that she had listened attentively, and then she nodded.
 
 3 o6 ROSY 
 
 "Of course you would want to tell the judge," she said. 
 "Every one feels that the judge is a great hand to tell 
 things to." She continued to smile invitingly; and 
 she put from her the inclination to speak further. She 
 wished Rosy to know that she was interested in what 
 she had to say, and perpared to receive it sympatheti- 
 cally. She knew how to make her silences reassuring; 
 and she simply waited, though she wished much to lessen 
 the difficulties of the girl who confronted her, and who 
 seemed at a loss just where to look or how to begin the 
 communication she had to make. 
 
 "I could have spoken to him when he was up on the 
 mountain," began Rosy, "only " 
 
 And then there was a spirited bit of drama enacted 
 between them. There was a sound out in the street, 
 and in response to a deeper gleam in Mrs. Powell's eyes, 
 Rosy, comprehending, asked eagerly: 
 
 "Is it ... ?" 
 
 And Mrs. Powell replied: "Yes, it's the judge, coming 
 home now."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 IT seemed quite a different house to Rosy after Judge 
 Powell came into it. There had been a certain mur- 
 muring sound of his motor as the chauffeur stopped 
 before the house to let him out. And then he came into 
 the house with an effect of dispelling the silence and 
 emptiness its air of waiting and there was the sound 
 of his feet on the stairs. For so quiet a man it seemed 
 really remarkable what an influence he exerted. 
 
 He manifested only a slight surprise at seeing Rosy, 
 but rather a frank delight; and if he glanced at Mrs. 
 Powell with a quick, unspoken inquiry, Rosy knew 
 nothing of it. He had a hundred things to say to Rosy 
 questions to ask her and if she had been self-conscious 
 she was not so any longer. It was like old times to have 
 the judge talking to her. She answered his questions 
 gayly, with unaffected delight. 
 
 She could not think where the tune had gone when 
 a servant came to announce dinner. She walked by 
 the judge's side as they went down-stairs; and she now 
 discovered why there was that lower floor to the house. 
 Its atmosphere had changed. A different door had 
 been opened, and while she was still at a distance she 
 caught a glimpse of a rather large table, snowy with 
 fine linen, and brilliant with crystal and silver which 
 caught the rays of the electric light. There were other 
 pieces of furniture which possessed the same quality 
 of remoteness which she had remarked in the furniture 
 of other rooms on this lower floor; a degree of lustre 
 to which she was not accustomed, and delicacy of out- 
 line; but these things had no power to make her feel
 
 308 ROSY 
 
 strange now. She was mainly conscious of nothing but 
 the judge's voice and beaming glances. 
 
 "It's just like having a dream come true," the judge 
 said. He was adjusting the chair to his right and guid- 
 ing Rosy to it. "Do your dreams ever come true, Rosy ? 
 I've said to myself many a time: 'Some day Rosy will 
 come to see us, and she'll sit here by my side.' ' 
 
 Rosy replied: "Yes, my best dreams always come 
 true." Her color deepened and for a moment she could 
 look at neither her hos-t nor her hostess. She wished she 
 might tell them now of the best dream of all which had 
 come true; but she was checked, for the moment at 
 least, by the appearance of a young woman who wore 
 an apron, just as the girl did who had let her into the 
 house that afternoon. But this was a different one; and 
 Rosy thought this one was even more like the Minturn 
 girls than the other had been, since this one seemed 
 actually not to see you at all, but moved to your side 
 as if she were on casters, and held a dish while you 
 helped yourself. 
 
 There was an interval after a while during which the 
 girl in the apron was invisible. She had gone out into 
 the kitchen and closed the door behind her. And Rosy 
 felt that the atmosphere had changed in some subtle 
 manner. Perhaps Mrs. Powell's voice held a different 
 note. She realized that they were all talking just as 
 freely as they should have done if they had been sitting 
 on the hotel veranda up on Moab or as they had done 
 on her father's porch in those summers which would 
 never come again. 
 
 She reflected presently: "But neither of them has 
 asked me, 'But why have you come, Rosy?' " and she 
 wished she could make an opportunity to tell them that 
 she was to be married. She wished to have that part 
 of her communication over and done with before the
 
 ROSY 309 
 
 time came for her to speak to the judge of of the serious 
 subject which she had come to talk to him about. She 
 had been subconsciously staging her secret hour with 
 the judge, and shrinking from it, and anticipating dif- 
 ficulties which were not at all likely to arise, and asking 
 herself what opportunity she should be afforded to tell 
 the judge what she had to tell him, with no one else to 
 hear. 
 
 "I couldn't put off coming to see you any longer," 
 she said presently, as if a question had existed, even if 
 no one had asked it. "Because it may be even more 
 difficult after a while. You see, I I'm to be married 
 before long." 
 
 She paused and observed the judge with expectant 
 eyes, knowing that he would be surprised, and perhaps 
 pleased. 
 
 He was surprised, certainly. He leaned back in his 
 chair and regarded her almost incredulously. And after 
 an interval of silence, "God bless my soul!" he ex- 
 claimed. "Is that true?" 
 
 Rosy could scarcely have realized what an amazing 
 announcement this would prove to her host and hostess. 
 She was smiling happily, almost mischievously. "Do 
 you remember the news you told me once as we were 
 riding up the mountain, about the American boy who 
 had been wounded in France a neighbor of mine?" 
 she asked. She glanced at Mrs. Powell, wondering^if 
 she could follow, without having the circumstances 
 all repeated. "I'm to many him," she added. 
 
 The judge seemed to be saying to himself: "What a 
 precocious child she is!" He continued to regard her 
 intently, almost dreamily. He seemed unable to grasp 
 the entire situation. He had always regarded Rosy as 
 a big, fine girl who couldn't as yet have anything to do 
 with the affairs and moods of a grown woman.
 
 3io ROSY 
 
 It was for Mrs. Powell, perhaps, that the moment 
 held the greatest difficulties. She was confronted, it 
 seemed, with the need of being instantly agreeable 
 and yet of withholding her approval until she knew 
 more. She began, as if she had no thought of misgiving: 
 "We hadn't the slightest inkling! . . . Well, well! 
 Now tell us all about it, Rosy." She was thinking: 
 "Let us see if this is to be permitted." 
 
 But almost immediately she perceived that even if 
 it should seem advisable to interfere, interference would 
 be futile. Rosy was like a young queen who, coming 
 unexpectedly into her kingdom, has nevertheless begun 
 to rule with authority and assurance. She told of the 
 lover who had won her, and how he had done so. She 
 related simple matters with*a quiet rapture as if the 
 story she was telling had never been told before. 
 
 Moreover, to her listeners it seemed, as she proceeded, 
 a good story, which needed no abridgment no altera- 
 tion at all. 
 
 A dreamy silence fell when she had finished; a little 
 period which held tranquillity and every hope. They 
 might all have been back on Moab, among things eternal 
 and unfretted. The judge was the first to speak, and 
 his voice seemed to come back from far away when he 
 said: "Bless my soul a soldier, back from the war." 
 And he turned toward his wife and added: "Do you 
 remember, my dear, where I had just come back from, 
 when I came courting you?" 
 
 She replied: "From Appomattox Court House." And 
 then another silence fell. 
 
 There was occasion to summon the young woman 
 from the kitchen, then; and a brisker mood began to 
 prevail. Mrs. Powell had offered up a little silent prayer 
 of thanks because the judge seemed, in the end, really 
 happy because of what Rosy had told them. She knew 
 that elderly men seldom have the slightest idea what
 
 ROSY 311 
 
 is in the mind of a woman-child of eighteen, and she 
 feared he would not at all comprehend what had taken 
 place. But he had done so, and with a good grace. 
 Nevertheless, she realized that she herself was regard- 
 ing Rosy from a new angle as if she had not quite clearly 
 seen her before. She was thinking how well the child 
 appeared under circumstances which must be in a large 
 degree strange to her. She was so far from being ill 
 at ease, or awkward. "She has learned to be deft in 
 the hard life she has lived," she thought, "and after 
 all, what is niceness but deftness in another place?" 
 
 Rosy did not know what chance Mrs. Powell had had 
 to speak a private word to the judge; but that she must 
 have done so was obvious from the judge's action after 
 dinner. He said, "Now, Rosy!" a little crisply; and 
 led the way out into the hall; and Rosy understood 
 by a glance from Mrs. Powell that she was to follow him. 
 She was rejoiced that, after all, she was to have a private 
 word with the judge without asking for it. There really 
 was something in what she had to say that no one but 
 the judge not even Mrs. Powell must hear. 
 
 Almost before she knew it the time had come for her 
 to speak and now she wished that she might have 
 postponed that hour for just a little while. She realized 
 that the world might have changed for her, after she 
 had spoken. She was sitting in an upholstered chair, 
 in a room all surrounded by books, which exerted a most 
 solemn influence. The steel engravings on the wall, 
 in severe frames, seemed also like an inimical influence. 
 The judge was occupying a chair rather farther away 
 from her than she could have wished. For a moment 
 there was something strangely detached in his manner 
 an air of profound impartiality which seemed almost 
 dreadful to Rosy. 
 
 Still, when he began to smile pleasantly, she felt that
 
 3 i2 ROSY 
 
 . < 
 
 she should rather he would not do so. She began with 
 an effort, with a note almost imperious in her voice: 
 "I wish you wouldn't smile now, Judge. It's something 
 very serious I have to say to you. And I shouldn't want 
 you to say Yes, when you've heard me out, just because 
 we've always been friends. It may seem something 
 wrong to you, and I should want you to say No, if you 
 felt you ought to." 
 
 He sat with his finger-tips pressed together in an en- 
 tirely judicial manner. And if he did not quite banish 
 the beam from his eyes, it at least ceased to concern 
 Rosy, since he sat with lowered head, listening. "Very 
 well, Rosy," he said. "Suppose you tell me now what 
 it is." 
 
 She came to the point promptly. "I want to see if 
 it's possible to get a pardon for a man who's a convict," 
 she said. 
 
 A subtle change took place in the judge's manner. 
 Again he had the awakening thought that he was not 
 dealing with a child, who must be supposed to think 
 only of childish things, but with a woman whose life 
 had already begun to reach out into deep places, per- 
 haps forbidden places. 
 
 She continued, speaking with difficulty. "And that 
 isn't the worst of it. The man is not only a convict 
 but he is an escaped convict. He ran away from his 
 punishment. They have never been able to find 
 him." 
 
 The judge was frowning. He began: "Such a case 
 ... it would seem altogether unprecedented, I should 
 think. Go on, Rosy." 
 
 She continued, with a tremor in her voice now: " But, 
 Judge, it's God's truth that Zeb Nanny- 
 He looked up at her sharply. "Is Nanny the man? " 
 he asked; and Rosy could not understand why he should
 
 ROSY 313 
 
 have seemed relieved, as if already her request had begun 
 to assume a different aspect. 
 
 She replied: "Yes, Judge. Do you remember hear- 
 ing about him ? " 
 
 "I have heard of him yes. I know a good deal about 
 his case. On the mountain last summer . . . there 
 was a gentleman who knew all about it. We discussed 
 it one night." 
 
 "He was never given a square deal, Judge. They 
 had robbed his father; and Zeb wasn't the kind that 
 could sit back and let a wrong be done without fighting. 
 He fought back that's all he did. In the only way he 
 could. And so, after they had robbed his father, they 
 sent Zeb to the penitentiary." 
 
 The judge nodded. "That's substantially the way 
 the matter was presented to me," he said. When Rosy 
 did not continue immediately he added: "I don't mind 
 saying that after I came back home I looked into the 
 case. I had the records examined. And I was convinced 
 that young Nanny was perhaps the first man who had 
 ever committed a theft technically, without being in 
 the slightest degree an actual thief. The mountain- 
 folk . . . when their spirits rebel they don't follow beaten 
 paths. They don't know the beaten paths which some- 
 times don't exist and they strike out in ways of their 
 own. This man Nanny appears to have found a new 
 and rather dangerous method of revenging an injury 
 which amounted to a crime. I don't mind telling you, 
 Rosy, that after I'd made a study of all the circum- 
 stances, and getting certain testimony of a purely per- 
 sonal kind, I began to cast about with the hope of being 
 able to do something for the young man. I never liked 
 to believe that the law need ever fall down completely, 
 as it seemed to have done in this case. And then I found 
 out that he had escaped; and so of course there wasn't 
 anything I could do."
 
 314 ROSY 
 
 Rosy leaned forward in her chair and spoke with great 
 earnestness: "And you're satisfied, Judge, that he's 
 not a real criminal? You'd help him if you could?" 
 
 He was still sitting with his finger-tips pressed to- 
 gether. After a moment he said: "We like to think, 
 Rosy, that the law is just sound common sense that 
 and nothing more. Sound common sense reduced to 
 applicable forms and formulas. Nanny was tried and 
 condemned as a thief. But his crime his offense, I 
 should say had in it none of the qualities which char- 
 acterize thievery. Viciousness, cupidity, dishonesty, 
 forgetfulness of the rule of meum et tuum none of these 
 appeared. Therefore, no matter how easy it might have 
 been to misinterpret the rules made and provided in 
 such cases, it was contrary to common sense to adjudge 
 him a thief. Little in the act itself, nothing in his 
 previous life, justified the conclusion that he was a thief. 
 It might have been very difficult for his judges to sub- 
 stitute a juster word; but if none were ready at hand 
 they should have saved themselves from error by ap- 
 plying the simple rule that the law is common sense, 
 while then- verdict was folly." 
 
 Rosy was breathing deeply, absorbing the essence of 
 this every bit of it. She took up the thread of her 
 story again. "Judge, I know where he is," she said. 
 "And I want to make things safe for him. I want some 
 one high in authority to say just what you've said that 
 he has been wronged. I want it put on paper, so that 
 everybody will know." 
 
 The judge was frowning with deepened perplexity. 
 He said at length: "If he would go back to the authori- 
 ties and give himself up ... That seems to have been 
 his real offense, Rosy to run away when they trusted 
 him. It would seem just, surely, not to extend clemency 
 to those who are still in a state of rebellion. There must
 
 ROSY 313 
 
 first be submission even to wrong. I mean, authority 
 must be withheld, you know, even when it doesn't quite 
 
 typify justice. If he could be persuaded to surrender 
 
 
 "He didn't mean to break his word, Judge. He came 
 up the mountain that night. I talked with him. He 
 meant to go back in time. But there was a storm 
 such a storm as I never saw on Moab before. And he 
 couldn't go back in time. And while he was in my 
 house " 
 
 "He could have explained that to the authorities of 
 the prison. He could have gone back the next day. 
 * Better late,' you know . . ." 
 
 It was Rosy's time to frown now. She said, after a 
 battle with herself: "I kain't bear to have him go back 
 to be a convict again. Judge . . . Judge . . ." 
 
 She flung her wrist across her eyes to blot out her 
 tears. And then with a new resolution she arose and 
 crossed the room to where he sat. She leaned against 
 a desk close to him. She began to speak again, in a 
 calm voice now, as if she had only just begun. Little 
 by little she explained why Zeb had not gone back, and 
 what it was that he had done instead. 
 
 And the judge, at first lost in pity for her, and in 
 wonder, was strangely aroused presently by a sense of 
 something familiar and fine. He brought his senses to 
 bear upon her intently, and as she proceeded his face 
 became, gradually, a wonderful study in amazement, and 
 at last hi triumph. The story she was telling how it 
 would ring across the land when all the world might 
 hear it ! How simple, yet how splendid it was ! 
 
 When she had finished she stood looking down at 
 him, her hands clasping the desk behind her. "Judge 
 . . . Kain't you do it for him now?" 
 
 " God bless us all !" the judge exclaimed at last. And
 
 316 ROSY 
 
 then, with a return of the old Moab manner the manner 
 of kindly banter and beaming eyes he added: "And 
 you don't think, Rosy, that a fellow like that ought 
 to go back to prison?" 
 
 "No, Judge!" she said. 
 
 He brought his clinched hand down on the arm of 
 his chair mightily, joyously. "Then," he cried, "Dad 
 burn me, he shall not go back !" 
 
 He crossed the room to a distant desk; and a mo- 
 ment later he was speaking at the telephone. Rosy 
 heard him inquire in his wonted genial, rather dry voice: 
 "Is this the governor's residence?" And then: "Is 
 the governor there?"
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 ALTHOUGH autumn clouds were obscuring the moun- 
 tain when Rosy reached it late the next day, she felt 
 more elated than she should have done if a score of suns 
 had been shining. If all the barriers between herself 
 and an untroubled future had not been removed, at 
 least she could reflect that glorious things had come to 
 pass. 
 
 For the moment she was dwelling ecstatically over a 
 certain stipulation the Powells had made: she was to 
 be married in their house ! The judge was to give her 
 away. He had said in his whimsical way: "I want to 
 give you away, Rosy and then afterward I'll feel that 
 I've got a special right to keep you ! " 
 
 She had not lacked a full appreciation of all that 
 this would mean. In the minds of many persons there 
 had been a stain on the name of Zeb Nanny. In a tech- 
 nical sense something of that stain might be thought to 
 remain or so it might seem to certain individuals who 
 placed the letter of the law above its spirit. But would 
 not that stain be forever wiped away when Judge Powell, 
 famed for his skill as a lawyer, and for his stanch sup- 
 port of right, opened his door to Zeb on his wedding- 
 day, and gave to him in marriage the girl who was all 
 but a daughter to him? 
 
 Moreover, Mrs. Powell was to have her wedding-dress 
 made for her. 
 
 When Rosy had demurred at this on the ground that 
 it would not seem proper, Mrs. Powell had asked: 
 "WouM you like to have me give you your wedding- 
 
 317
 
 3 i8 ROSY 
 
 dress, Rosy?" And when she had confessed, with 
 delicious embarrassment, that she should like it, her 
 old friend had replied promptly: "Then you may be 
 sure it will be quite proper." 
 
 Judge Powell had not succeeded in communicating 
 with the governor the night before. The governor had 
 not been at home, and was not expected to return until 
 the next day. But the judge had given his word to Rosy 
 that he would not rest until he had obtained an uncon- 
 ditional pardon for Zeb Nanny, if such a thing were 
 possible, and he had given her almost positive assur- 
 ance that she might expect to have the pardon in her 
 hands within the next forty-eight hours. 
 
 She came up the mountain afoot, because to have 
 waited for any one to convey her would have meant a 
 delay. Happiness gave her strength, and she was in 
 no mood to remain passive even for an instant. She 
 walked eagerly, joyously, as another person might have 
 shouted or sung. And although the clouds gathered 
 more darkly about her as she advanced, she was scarcely 
 aware of them. She had made the great adventure, 
 and she had succeeded she knew she had succeeded. 
 Why, then, should she mind a cloudy sky? 
 
 She stopped to speak to Jacob Feld, much as if she 
 had been away for ages. She asked him if anything 
 had happened as if her house might have mouldered 
 away and fallen, as if the horse and the chickens might 
 have died of old age. And she smiled happily in re- 
 sponse to Feld's reassuring smile. No, nothing had 
 happened. 
 
 She opened her door with trembling fingers, and once 
 inside the house she paused and listened intently. She 
 said to herself: "I wonder what he is doing?" She 
 thought: "Suppose I should find that he has gone 
 away!" She knew that she could have nothing more
 
 ROSY 319 
 
 to ask from life, if she should find that he was her guest 
 no more, that she should never have to think of him 
 again. If only something might happen to induce him 
 to go before Zeb came ! 
 
 She flung her suitcase aside unopened. She pulled 
 the pins from her hat and dropped the hat on the bed. 
 She stood before her mirror and ran her fingers through 
 her hair again and again. She was saying to herself, 
 as if from the habit of responsibility: "I must go and 
 tell him I have come home." But another train of 
 fancies was running high and strong above her con- 
 cern for the man who was in hiding. She was thinking: 
 "What will everybody say when the paper in Pisgah 
 says that I am to be married in Little Rock, in Judge 
 Powell's house?" 
 
 She went out of the house, into the night where a 
 storm was brooding. She approached the old well and 
 called warily: "I am here!" And she lingered, with 
 apprehensive face, until she heard the grinding of a 
 shoe on the rocky floor of the cavern. She went back 
 into the house then and began to work in the kitchen. 
 Her sense of obligation awoke in her. She meant to 
 prepare a good supper, with everything nice and in- 
 viting. After all, she was entertaining a guest and how 
 greatly, to the end of her life, she should be indebted 
 to that guest ! 
 
 She scarcely heard the sound of the door opening and 
 of footsteps on the threshold, nor of the voice addressing 
 her: "And so you've made the great trip to the Rock 
 and come back alive!" 
 
 The words were a jest, but there was a sneer in them 
 too; and she turned about for a second and looked at 
 him, a little startled, a little pained. Then she said 
 quietly: "Yes, I have come back." 
 
 He seemed scarcely to have missed her, she thought.
 
 320 ROSY 
 
 He went to the door and looked out. In a dreary tone 
 he said, without turning: "It looks like rain." And it 
 came to her again that he was a singularly little creature, 
 seeing trifling ills, and remaining blind to the looming 
 shame which wrapped him about. 
 
 He sat about, watching her with mild interest that 
 evening and the next day. He could see that she was 
 a changed creature, but he could not fathom the change 
 which had occurred in her, and he would not ask her 
 what it was that had happened. 
 
 Once (toward the end of the next afternoon) he 
 yawned loudly and said: "It's a gay life I'm leading, I 
 must say." 
 
 She went on sewing, with a rapt expression in her 
 eyes; and after an interval she looked up at him with 
 a start and said: "What? What did you say?" She 
 had not heard him. 
 
 He was offended, and turned away from her moodily 
 and did not repeat what he had said. But after a time 
 he remarked: "You're tired of having me around here, 
 Rosy I can see that." 
 
 She replied evenly: "I haven't said so." 
 
 "But, never mind," he added. "I'll be going soon. 
 I've made up my mind. Put up with me another day 
 or two that's all I ask. You'd not care to know what 
 my plans are. I'll not bore you with them. But just 
 make the best of things for another day or two and then 
 I'll be gone." 
 
 She feared to look up though she knew his back 
 was toward her; and she was afraid to speak, lest her 
 voice should rise to a great shout of relief. She was 
 unwilling to pretend regret or to betray relief lest he 
 might change his mind. But her pulses pounded. He 
 was going away ! In a day or two he would be gone !
 
 ROSY 321 
 
 And then Zeb would come and find her as she wished to 
 be found, alone ! 
 
 The clouds which had greeted her upon her return 
 home deepened during that second afternoon. The 
 mountain was surrounded by a dense veil; river and 
 town and valley were as if they had never been. But 
 Rosy worked on unceasingly. New avenues had been 
 opened for her energies and for her dreams too. She 
 had been fired with new ideals by her visit to the Powells. 
 They had been good to her; and not in a patronizing 
 way, but in a way which made her respect herself more 
 highly. She was going to become almost like a daughter 
 to them. She was to be married in their lovely home. 
 She thought about this constantly; and about the judge's 
 promise too. She thought almost every minute about 
 the pardon that was coming, which was on its way to 
 her. What a moment that would be, when it lay in 
 her hand! And she thought of the soldier who was 
 coming to claim her. In a few days now, she could ven- 
 ture to hope. She did not know just when, but it would 
 be soon. 
 
 The day ended; the supper-hour passed, and Rosy 
 took her place by the lamp in the front room and took 
 her sewing into her hands. Minturn did not seem dis- 
 posed to go away to his own place, and she did not mind. 
 She thought: "He will go before long." She thought 
 that perhaps he shrank from going away by himself 
 because of the feeling as of coming storm in the atmos- 
 phere. An ominous stillness wrapped the mountain. 
 The night was black. And Rosy thought of that other 
 night of storm, when a hand had been laid on her window- 
 sill and all the currents of her life had been changed. 
 
 Minturn had found something to read, and he sat on 
 the other side of the table from her, turning a page 
 occasionally. She glanced at him and felt her heart
 
 322 ROSY 
 
 softening in an inexplicable way. He was weak that 
 was all. And surely weakness was to be pitied rather 
 than hated. She would not employ any of the delicate 
 methods by which she might make him feel that she 
 wished him to go away. If he wished to remain near 
 her, let him do so. It would not be for long, now; he 
 had promised to go away for good and all in another 
 day or two. 
 
 Hours passed and the man and woman in the room 
 scarcely stirred. Rosy was too blissfully wrapped in 
 dreams to mark the passing of the hours, and Minturn's 
 book continued to hold him. If an outsider could have 
 looked into the room for a moment he might have mis- 
 taken that picture for one of deep contentment. And 
 neither the man nor the woman who sat there could 
 have guessed that this long silence was only a prelude 
 to the breaking of high drama, swift and terrible. 
 
 The clock ticked monotonously; Minturn turned 
 another page; the ominous silence without steadily 
 deepened. 
 
 And then there was an almost furtive tapping at the 
 door. 
 
 The man and the woman in the room started as if 
 they were guilty creatures. They looked at each other 
 incredulously as if perhaps they thought they had 
 been dreaming, and that there had really been no sum- 
 mons at all. And then Rosy laid her work aside and 
 arose stealthily. She turned her startled face toward 
 her companion and indicated by a glance that he must 
 retire, if he meant to do so; and when he was gone 
 when his footsteps had died away through the kitchen 
 door and beyond she advanced and laid her hand on 
 the latch. Slowly she opened the door. 
 
 In the intense darkness she caught the impression 
 of a statue standing there; of a statue, yet of a figure
 
 ROSY 323 
 
 in a man's clay-colored garments, and with eyes which 
 pierced the gloom, and caught the glow of her lamp on 
 the table, and burned like coals on a dead hearth. And 
 then there was a voice tremulous with an eagerness 
 which, too long confined, seemed spilling over: "Rosy !" 
 And then, with a deeper intensity: "Rosy I" 
 
 She put her hand out to him and drew him into the 
 room. She closed the door behind him. And then while 
 her mind seemed to halt, overcome with joy, her arms 
 performed their allotted task as if they moved involun- 
 tarily. He was drawn with a frantic eagerness against 
 her breast. His campaign hat fell to the floor unnoticed. 
 There flashed before her the realization that he had 
 only one hand with which to return her caresses, and 
 her breast began to rise and fall with pity in which also 
 there was the rapture of one greatly privileged and 
 blessed. She pressed his head to her breast in silence, 
 and presently she uttered a low, inarticulate cry, and 
 when he lifted his head obediently, she kissed him on 
 the lips. Again she drew his head down to her breast, 
 and laid her cheek against his hair in an ecstasy of shame 
 and rapture. He had come back, and he was hers ! The 
 strength which had been his was his no more; it had 
 been offered up on those shrines in France whose fires 
 were to purify a world and preserve the things which j 
 have been right from the beginning and which shall ' 
 remain right unto the end. But he had come back and 
 he was hers. 
 
 And then a terrible loud noise drove them asunder; 
 as if the actor who had come back had brought with 
 him a moment from the play. It was a clap of thunder, 
 incredibly loud in the night silence. It died away with 
 long, lingering reverberations, until infinite spaces had 
 absorbed it in the gorges and glens of the mountain, and 
 the caverns and forests, and the surrounding valleys. .
 
 3 2 4 ROSY 
 
 She saw an expression in his eyes, as of an image of 
 a hundred days and nights of shuddering tumult. She 
 put her hands on his eyes as if they were a balm to draw 
 the pain away. "It's only the thunder," she whispered. 
 But her voice broke and she drew his face toward her 
 with a kind of slow solemnity, as if it were a goblet filled 
 with an elixir. She fitted her lips to his as if she would 
 put a seal upon all memories of anguish and darkness. 
 "It is only the thunder," she repeated, as a mother 
 speaks to a troubled child. 
 
 It came again; and following it, almost incredibly, 
 there came again a knock at the door. 
 
 When he stepped aside she opened the door jealously 
 and looked out. Jacob Feld stood there in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 "I saw your light burning, Rosy," he said apologeti- 
 cally. "I could have waited until to-morrow; but I 
 thought maybe . . . you see, I came up from Pisgah 
 late to-night, and there was a letter for you. A letter 
 from Little Rock." She thought he was smiling strangely 
 as he stood there in the darkness. But was he smiling? 
 His lips were trembling ... He placed an official en- 
 velope in her hands and turned away. 
 
 She closed the door and stepped close to the light 
 and tore the envelope open. She drew the single crisp 
 sheet from its place and opened it and began to read 
 aloud: 
 
 "To whom . . . 
 
 ... I have this day granted a full and complete 
 pardon to Zebulon Nanny . . ." 
 
 She was interrupted by a blinding light that filled 
 the hut. The thunder was shaking the mountain again, 
 following close upon the lightning, which seemed to 
 have entered the very room, to have occupied all the 
 space in the universe. But this time, added to the roll
 
 ROSY 315 
 
 of the thunder, there was a nearer sound, a great crash- 
 ing which made the hut tremble. It came from the 
 mountain slope, it crossed the road, it progressed in- 
 exorably past the hut. 
 
 Rosy flung the door open in terror. Jacob Feld was 
 standing out in the road, his lantern lifted to a level 
 with his face. 
 
 She called to him in a startled voice: "What is it, 
 Mr. Feld?" She emerged from her place and joined 
 him in the road. 
 
 "I think the Sphinx Rock has gone at last," he said. 
 
 They went together a little way along the road. The 
 great spherical mass of granite was in its place no more. 
 Trees had been crushed to the earth where it had rolled 
 down the slope. The stones in the road were ground 
 to dust; a length of stone wall had been swept away. 
 They followed in the wake of that resistless force until 
 they reached the spot where it had come to rest. 
 
 The old well which Rosy's father had blasted from the 
 rock was visible no more. The Sphinx Rock had stopped 
 in its progress just in this spot, to remain unmoved 
 through all eternity, or until a new epoch in time should 
 remove the very mountain from its foundations.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 ROSY stood in her place, overwhelmed by the terrible 
 pictures which rushed upon her brain. She was behold- 
 ing that cavern which had been a region of vague yet 
 splendid dreams throughout her childhood, but which 
 had become a place of dark, ignoble tragedy. 
 
 For the moment she could not imagine any means 
 of escape for the man who was imprisoned there; and 
 she thought of what would happen as time passed 
 after the first moments of agonized terror were over. 
 She thought of him drinking sparingly from the water- 
 jar against the day when he should have nothing more 
 to drink, or turning the wick of his lamp low lest the 
 oil be consumed too speedily. And then she beheld 
 a fearful vision of the passing years, and the weight of 
 a guilty secret pressing her down and poisoning her 
 life, and abiding with her by day and night and build- 
 ing barriers between herself and all whom she loved. 
 
 She knew that Jacob Feld had lifted his lantern high 
 again and was peering darkly into her eyes; but for 
 the moment she could not bear to acknowledge to any 
 other living creature the terror which assailed her. She 
 was too greatly stunned to think, really. She mur- 
 mured: "I must have a little time . . ." And she 
 turned from the old man and went into her house. She 
 closed her door behind her, perhaps with the thought 
 of shutting out the consciousness of a situation which 
 was too dreadful to contemplate. 
 
 Certain tasks which were unfinished came back to 
 
 326
 
 ROSY 327 
 
 claim the partial exercise of her faculties. The gaunt, 
 strangely passive yet intense figure in uniform faced 
 her calmly; solicitously, yet without a hint of agitation. 
 
 "It was the Sphinx Rock," she explained. "It has 
 fallen." Then, as if she had no words at her command, 
 she took up the pardon which she had flung on the table 
 and looked at it again. A faint beam came into her 
 eyes; a delicate color warmed her cheeks. She ad- 
 vanced, with the air of one who performs a rite, and 
 placed the document in the soldier's hands. 
 
 "For me?" he asked wonderingly; and then he read. 
 
 She felt that the joy of life had come back to her an 
 instant later when he read slowly, with a steady bright- 
 ness kindling in his eyes. He moved, as if he could not 
 trust his eyes, closer to the light. He read aloud: "... 
 a full and complete pardon to Zebulon Nanny . . ." 
 He dropped the sheet to the table and turned to her 
 with rapture. "Rosy!" he cried, "who did it for me? 
 It was you . . ." 
 
 She had her arms about him again. "It was your 
 right," she declared. "It would have been done long 
 ago if they had known." 
 
 He turned from her and picked up the written sheet 
 again. He reread the words deliberately, as if to be 
 sure of them. " If I had known," he said, smiling faintly, 
 "if I had known . . . you know, coming home . . ." 
 
 She stood looking up at him. "Yes, tell me about 
 that," she said. 
 
 "I got off at a station down the road. I was afraid 
 somebody would see me somebody who would know 
 me. I waited until after dark, and then I walked. When 
 I came up the mountain I had escaped every one, you 
 see it came back to me . . . that other time when I 
 came up the same road. I was thinking that after I'd 
 seen you and my father I'd I'd go back and give my-
 
 328 ROSY 
 
 self up, and have it all over with. But this this . . ." 
 He folded the sheet and held it close to him and looked 
 at her with rapturous eyes. 
 
 "Zeb, dear!" she cried. 
 
 He sat down in her chair and drew her down beside 
 him. She found a hassock and sat close to him, resting 
 her elbow on his knee. He put his arm across her shoul- 
 der; and for the moment both knew that stillness which 
 is better than speech. She was supremely happy until 
 her mind wandered a little, and she thought with a start 
 of the fallen Sphinx Rock, and of the prison which 
 would be a prison forevermore where Minturn must be 
 crouching and trembling in the dark. 
 
 And then quite suddenly she saw precisely what she 
 must do. 
 
 She arose quickly. "Wait," she whispered. She left 
 her hut and closed the door behind her. She hurried 
 along the bench in the direction of Jacob Feld's resi- 
 dence. 
 
 She thought it strange that a light should be burning 
 in Feld's house. It was very late. She mounted his 
 steps and tapped at his door a little wonderingly. 
 
 Old Jacob was standing quite still beside a table on 
 which an envelope was lying. 
 
 "Yes, Rosy?" he said, turning to her. 
 
 "It's come to me what I ought to do what I must 
 do," she said, a little breathlessly. "You know the 
 cavern where where he is ... There is an opening 
 in the side of the mountain. He could be reached if 
 men brought things from Minturn's quarry a cable 
 and a derrick, things like that. Couldn't he ? It means 
 ... his father must be told. He must be told to-night. 
 So that they can get to work right away. So that it 
 can be done before daylight, if possible." She paused, 
 trying to catch the expression in the old man's eyes.
 
 ROSY 329 
 
 Would he understand how imperative it was that some- 
 thing be done immediately? 
 
 "I'd thought of that," said Feld. "I was only think- 
 ing of you. I mean, I was waiting for you to speak the 
 word. I'll go to Minturn to-night. And you needn't 
 think I'll mind, Rosy. You've been thinking you ought 
 not to let me know that it might get me into trouble, 
 more than it would another, on account I'm a Ger- 
 man." 
 
 He moved farther away from her and stood by the 
 table, his hand reaching for the envelope which lay there. 
 She saw that his fingers trembled slightly, and she per- 
 ceived again that expression as of a strange smile on 
 his lips, which were quivering. 
 
 "Though I'm not a German, Rosy. They'll never 
 want to call me that no more. I've come into this new 
 house this America to be obedient and grateful. 
 I've stopped at the door and bought my ticket, Rosy, 
 now!" He took up the envelope from the table and 
 slowly lifted his head high. The paper crackled in his 
 hand. "I I've given my son . . ." 
 
 And she knew what that envelope contained. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Feld !" she cried. She drew helplessly near 
 him. She took his trembling hand and brought it to 
 her lips. "Oh, Mr. Feld!" she cried again. 
 
 He put the envelope back on the table. "I'd better 
 be starting," he said. "And Rosy . , . you know Min- 
 turn won't want to say a whole lot about what his son 
 has been doing, or where he's been. If he can I think 
 maybe he'll try to get him home, and hide him, or get 
 him away somewhere in secret. If Minturn never cared 
 a lot for other people, nobody ever said yet that he didn't 
 think a lot of himself." 
 
 He took up his lantern and held it to his ear and shook 
 it, to determine if it had oil enough in it to last during
 
 330 ROSY 
 
 the journey down the mountain and back. And even 
 in that moment he could not resist the temptation to 
 have his little joke. "But you, Rosy," he said, "what 
 am I to think of you? Hiding a man who should be 
 a soldier, and President Wilson asking for soldiers all 
 the time! Eh, Rosy?" 
 
 She knew he was smiling in his mild, puckered fashion, 
 though she was not looking at him. She replied simply: 
 "I hid a weakling, so that I might send a man to Mr. 
 Wilson!" 
 
 He nodded, well pleased. "So you did," he said. 
 And then he turned away ready, as always, to serve 
 her. 
 
 She wondered how she could thank him, but she 
 waited too long; and presently she was standing alone 
 and Jacob Feld's sturdy, short legs were moving away 
 by the distant lantern light. 
 
 When she returned to her house Nanny was standing 
 in the doorway, casting an appraising glance toward 
 the sky. He began cheerfully: "I don't believe we're 
 going to have a storm, after all. It seems to have spent 
 itself in thunder and lightning." He continued, as he 
 followed her into the house: "I'll be going now, Rosy. 
 My father will be wanting to see me." 
 
 He drew her close, and wondered what could have 
 brought that dreamy expression into her eyes. She 
 said: "Your father ... of course you must go to him. 
 And Zeb give your father my love, won't you? And 
 tell him I kept my word. He'll understand." 
 
 He responded, a little puzzled: "Well, I'll tell him." 
 He added: "I'll be coming back to-morrow, and I'll not 
 have to hide along the way. And Rosy . . . we'll be 
 married soon, so that I'll not have to come and go any 
 more so that we'll both be with father, and nothing 
 can separate us any more."
 
 ROSY 331 
 
 She replied with perfect simplicity. "As soon as you 
 wish," she said. " You can set the day. I'll be ready 
 almost any time." She felt a delicious embarrassment, 
 but she would not lower her eyes. It was too glorious. 
 watching the pain fade from his face and the rosy vision 
 of the future touching it with joy and repose. She told 
 him they were to be married at Judge Powell's, if he 
 didn't mind. Could he come to fetch her there? 
 
 He did not seem quite duly impressed by this state- 
 ment. He only said: "Yes, anywhere." 
 
 And then a mood of wifely solicitude came to her. 
 She put his hat into his hand. "If you could only stay 
 a little longer ! " she said; " but Jacob Feld is going down 
 the mountain he's going over your way. And he's got 
 a lantern. If you'll hurry a little you'll overtake him 
 on the road. He is going over to see Rufus Minturn 
 about something. And I'll look for you to-morrow?" 
 
 She watched him leave her door. She left the door 
 open, and when she heard his footsteps out on the road 
 she went and stood in the doorway. Around a curve 
 in the bench road she caught the gleam of Jacob Feld's 
 lantern, and she knew the eager feet of the younger 
 man would speedily overtake that guiding light. She 
 stood until the last glimmer of the lantern had faded from 
 her sight and until the sound of the retreating feet could 
 be heard no more. 
 
 The night had become alive again. It seemed to be 
 singing to her, calmly, with a hint of everlasting peace. 
 It seemed to be soothing her with its message of per- 
 manency, of safety. 
 
 She sighed deeply, though her lips were smiling; and 
 then she closed her door.
 
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