His reward came promptly in the girl"s sunny smile. And the sight of it quickened his pulses and set him longing to hold her again in his arms as he had done only yesterday. Somehow she had taken a place in his thoughts which left him feeling very helpless. He never remembered feeling helpless before. It was as though her coming into his life had robbed him of all his confidence. Yesterday he had found a woman almost in rags. Yesterday she was in trouble, and it had seemed the simplest thing in the world for him to take her in his arms and carry her to the home he knew to be hers. Now--now, all that confidence was gone. Now an indefinable barrier, but none the less real, had been raised between them. It was a barrier he felt powerless to break down.
This beautiful girl, with her deep violet eyes and wonderful red-gold hair, clad in her trim costume of lawn and serge, seemed to him like a creature from an undreamed-of world, and as remote from him as if thousands of miles separated them. He sighed as Joan went on with her examination--
"I suppose you have come to fetch some of your big friend"s belongings?" she said pleasantly.
For answer Buck suddenly flung out a protecting arm.
"Say, you"re sure getting mussed with that dirty litter," he said almost reproachfully. "See, your fixin"s are right agin it. Say----"
Joan laughed outright at his look of profound concern.
"That doesn"t matter a bit," she exclaimed. "I must get used to being "mussed-up." You see, I"m a farmer--now."
The other"s concern promptly vanished. He loved to hear her laugh.
"You never farmed any?" he asked.
"Never." Joan shook her head in mock seriousness. "Isn"t it desperate of me? No, I"m straight from a city."
Buck withdrew his gaze from her face and glanced out at the hills. But it was only for a moment. His eyes came back as though drawn by a magnet.
"Guess you"ll likely find it dull here--after a city," he said at last. "Y" see, it"s a heap quiet. It ain"t quiet to me, but then I"ve never been to a city--unless you call Leeson b.u.t.te a city. Some folks feel lonesome among these big hills."
"I don"t think I shall feel lonesome," Joan said quickly. "The peace and quiet of this big world is all I ask. I left the city to get away from--oh, from the bustle of it all! Yes, I want the rest and quiet of these hills more than anything else in the world."
The pa.s.sionate longing in her words left Buck wondering. But he nodded sympathetically.
"I"d say you"d get it right here," he declared. Then he turned toward the great hills, and a subtle change seemed to come over his whole manner. His dark eyes wore a deep, far-away look in which shone a wonderfully tender affection. It was the face of a man who, perhaps for the first time, realizes the extent and depth of his love for the homeland which is his.
"It"s big--big," he went on, half to himself. "It"s so big it sometimes makes me wonder. Look at "em," he cried, pointing out at the purpling distance, "rising step after step till it don"t seem they can ever git bigger. An" between each step there"s a sort of world different from any other. Each one"s hidden all up, so pryin" eyes can"t see into "em. There"s life in those worlds, all sorts of life.
An" it"s jest fightin", lovin", dyin", eatin", sleepin", same as everywhere else. There"s a big story in "em somewhere--a great big story. An" it"s all about the game of life goin" on in there, jest the same as it does here, an" anywher". Yes, it"s a big story and hard to read for most of us. Guess we don"t ever finish readin" it, anyway--until we die. Don"t guess they intended us to. Don"t guess it would be good for us to read it easy."
He turned slowly from the scene that meant so much to him, and smiled into Joan"s astonished eyes.
"An" you"re goin" to git busy--readin" that story?" he asked.
The startled girl found herself answering almost before she was aware of it.
"I--I hope to," she said simply.
Then she suddenly realized her own smallness. She felt almost overpowered with the bigness of what the man"s words had shown her. It was wonderful to her the thought of this--this "scallawag." The word flashed through her mind, and with it came an even fuller realization of Mrs. Ransford"s stupidity. The man"s thought was the poet"s insight into Nature"s wonderlands. He was speaking of that great mountain world as though it were a religion to him, as if it represented some treasured poetic ideal, or some lifelong, priceless friendship.
She saw his answering nod of sympathy, and sighed her relief. Just for one moment she had been afraid. She had been afraid of some sign of pity, even contempt. She felt her own weakness without that. Now she was glad, and went on with more confidence.
"I"m going to start from the very beginning," she said, with something akin to enthusiasm. "I"m going to start here--right here, on my very own farm. Surely the rudiments must lie here--the rudiments that must be mastered before the greater task of reading that story is begun."
She turned toward the blue hills, where the summer clouds were wrapped about the glistening snowcaps. "Yes," she cried, clasping her hands enthusiastically, "I want to learn it all--all." Suddenly she turned back and looked at him with a wonderful, smiling simplicity. "Will you help me?" she said eagerly. "Perhaps--in odd moments? Will you help me with those--lessons?"
Buck"s breath came quickly, and his simple heart was set thumping in his bosom. But his face was serious, and his eyes quite calm as he nodded.
"It"ll be dead easy for you to learn," he said, a new deep note sounding in his voice. "You"ll learn anything I know, an" much more, in no time. You can"t help but learn. You"ll be quicker to understand, quicker to feel all those things. Y" see I"ve got no sort of cleverness--nor nuthin". I jest look around an" see things--an" then, then I think I know." He laughed quietly at his own conceit. "Oh, yes!
sometimes I guess I know it all. An" then I get sorry for folks that don"t, an" I jest wonder how it comes everybody don"t understand--same as me. Then something happens."
"Yes, yes."
Joan was so eager she felt she could not wait for the pause that followed. Buck laughed.
"Something happens, same as it did yesterday," he went on. "Oh, it"s big--it sure is!" he added. And he turned again to his contemplation of the hills.
But Joan promptly recalled his wandering attention.
"You mean--the storm?" she demanded.
Buck nodded.
"That--an" the other."
"What--other?"
"The washout," he said.
Then, as he saw the look of perplexity in the wide violet eyes, he went on to explain--
"You ain"t heard? Why, there was a washout on Devil"s Hill, where for nigh a year they bin lookin" for gold. Y" see they knew the gold was there, but couldn"t jest locate it. For months an" months they ain"t seen a sign o" color. They bin right down to "hard pan." They wer"
jest starvin" their lives clear out. But they"d sank the"r pile in that hill, an" couldn"t bring "emselves to quit. Then along comes the storm, an" right wher" they"re working it washes a great lump o" the hill down. Hundreds o" thousands o" tons of rock an" stuff it would have needed a train load of dynamite to shift."
"Yes, yes." Joan"s eagerness brought her a step nearer to him. "And they found----"
"Gold!" Buck laughed. "Lumps of it."
"Gold--in lumps!" The girl"s eyes widened with an excitement which the discovery of the precious metal ever inspires.
The man watched her thoughtfully.
"Why aren"t you there?" Joan demanded suddenly.
"Can"t jest say." Buck shrugged. "Maybe it"s because they bin lookin"
fer gold, an"--wal, I haven"t."
"Gold--in lumps!" Again came the girl"s amazed exclamation, and Buck smiled at her enthusiasm.
"Sure. An" they kind o" blame you for it. They sort o" fancy you brought "em their luck. Y" see it came when you got around their hut.
They say ther" wasn"t no luck to the place till you brought it. An"
now----"
Joan"s eyes shone.
"Oh, I"m so glad. I"m so glad I"ve brought them----"
But her expression of joy was never completed. She broke off with a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and the color died out of her cheeks, leaving her so ghastly pale that the man thought she was about to faint. She staggered back and leant for support against the wall of the barn, and Buck sprang to her side. In a moment, however, she stood up and imperiously waved him aside.