A Mountain Woman [8]
the little water- fall that she calls the happy one. She was looking straight up at the billowing mist that dipped down the mountain, mammoth saffron rolls of it, plunging so madly from the impetus of the wind that one marvelled how it could be noiseless. Ah, you do not know Judith! That strange, unsophisti- cated, sometimes awkward woman you saw bore no more resemblance to my mountain woman than I to Hercules. How strong and beautiful she looked standing there wrapped in an ecstasy! It was my primitive woman back in her primeval world. How the blood leaped in me! All my old romance, so dif- ferent from the common love-histories of most men, was there again within my reach! All the mystery, the poignant happiness were mine again. Do not hold me in con- tempt because I show you my heart. You saw my misery. Why should I grudge you a glimpse of my happiness? She saw me when I touched her hand, not before, so wrapped was she. But she did not seem surprised. Only in her splendid eyes there came a large content. She pointed to the dancing little white fall. 'I thought some- thing wonderful was going to happen,' she whispered, 'for it has been laughing so.'
"I shall not return to New York. I am going to stay here with my mountain wo- man, and I think perhaps I shall find out what life means here sooner than I would back there with you. I shall learn to see large things large and small things small. Judith says to tell you and Miss Grant that the four voices are calling for you every day in the valley.
"Yours in fullest friendship,
"LEROY BRAINARD."
Jim Lancy's Waterloo
"WE must get married before time to put in crops," he wrote. "We must make a success of the farm the first year, for luck. Could you manage to be ready to come out West by the last of February? After March opens there will be no let-up, and I do not see how I could get away. Make it Febru- ary, Annie dear. A few weeks more or less can make no difference to you, but they make a good deal of difference to me."
The woman to whom this was written read it with something like anger. "I don't be- lieve he's so impatient for me!" she said to herself. "What he wants is to get the crops in on time." But she changed the date of their wedding, and made it February.
Their wedding journey was only from the Illinois village where she lived to their Nebraska farm. They had never been much together, and they had much to say to each other.
"Farming won't come hard to you," Jim assured her. "All one needs to farm with is brains."
"What a success you'll make of it!" she cried saucily.
"I wish I had my farm clear," Jim went on; "but that's more than any one has around me. I'm no worse off than the rest. We've got to pay off the mortgage, Annie."
"Of course we must. We'll just do with- out till we get the mortgage lifted. Hard work will do anything, I guess. And I'm not afraid to work, Jim, though I've never had much experience."
Jim looked out of the window a long time, at the gentle undulations of the brown Iowa prairie. His eyes seemed to pierce beneath the sod, to the swelling buds of the yet invisible grass. He noticed how disdain- fully the rains of the new year beat down the grasses of the year that was gone. It opened to his mind a vision of the season's possibilities. For a moment, even amid the smoke of the car, he seemed to scent clover, and hear the stiff swishing of the corn and the dull burring of the bees.
"I wish sometimes," he said, leaning for- ward to look at his bride, "that I had been born something else than a farmer. But I can no more help farming, Annie, than a bird can help singing, or a bee making honey. I didn't take to farming. I was simply born with a hoe in my hand."
"I don't know a blessed thing about it," Annie confessed. "But I made up my mind that a farm with you was better than a town without you. That's all there is to it, as far as I am concerned."
Jim Lancy slid his arm softly about her waist, unseen by the other passengers. Annie looked up apprehensively, to see if any one was noticing. But they
"I shall not return to New York. I am going to stay here with my mountain wo- man, and I think perhaps I shall find out what life means here sooner than I would back there with you. I shall learn to see large things large and small things small. Judith says to tell you and Miss Grant that the four voices are calling for you every day in the valley.
"Yours in fullest friendship,
"LEROY BRAINARD."
Jim Lancy's Waterloo
"WE must get married before time to put in crops," he wrote. "We must make a success of the farm the first year, for luck. Could you manage to be ready to come out West by the last of February? After March opens there will be no let-up, and I do not see how I could get away. Make it Febru- ary, Annie dear. A few weeks more or less can make no difference to you, but they make a good deal of difference to me."
The woman to whom this was written read it with something like anger. "I don't be- lieve he's so impatient for me!" she said to herself. "What he wants is to get the crops in on time." But she changed the date of their wedding, and made it February.
Their wedding journey was only from the Illinois village where she lived to their Nebraska farm. They had never been much together, and they had much to say to each other.
"Farming won't come hard to you," Jim assured her. "All one needs to farm with is brains."
"What a success you'll make of it!" she cried saucily.
"I wish I had my farm clear," Jim went on; "but that's more than any one has around me. I'm no worse off than the rest. We've got to pay off the mortgage, Annie."
"Of course we must. We'll just do with- out till we get the mortgage lifted. Hard work will do anything, I guess. And I'm not afraid to work, Jim, though I've never had much experience."
Jim looked out of the window a long time, at the gentle undulations of the brown Iowa prairie. His eyes seemed to pierce beneath the sod, to the swelling buds of the yet invisible grass. He noticed how disdain- fully the rains of the new year beat down the grasses of the year that was gone. It opened to his mind a vision of the season's possibilities. For a moment, even amid the smoke of the car, he seemed to scent clover, and hear the stiff swishing of the corn and the dull burring of the bees.
"I wish sometimes," he said, leaning for- ward to look at his bride, "that I had been born something else than a farmer. But I can no more help farming, Annie, than a bird can help singing, or a bee making honey. I didn't take to farming. I was simply born with a hoe in my hand."
"I don't know a blessed thing about it," Annie confessed. "But I made up my mind that a farm with you was better than a town without you. That's all there is to it, as far as I am concerned."
Jim Lancy slid his arm softly about her waist, unseen by the other passengers. Annie looked up apprehensively, to see if any one was noticing. But they