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By Root 4987 0

simple places by train or boat at season’s end with generations of yellow leaves spilling on the north wind as we spill our seed and the dogs and the children in the back of the car, but it is not a fact that at the moment of separation a tumult of brilliant and precise images—as though we drowned—streams through our heads. We have indeed come back to lighted houses, smelling on the north wind burning applewood, and seen a Polish countess greasing her face in a ski lodge and heard the cry of the horned owl in rut and smelled a dead whale on the south wind that carries also the sweet note of the bell from Antwerp and the dishpan summons of the bell from Altoona but we do not remember all this and more as we board the train.

Sarah began to cry when Moses kissed her. Leander put an arm around her shoulder but she would have none of it and so they stood apart when Moses said good-by. As soon as the train started, Coverly, who had boarded it in Travertine, came out of the toilet where he was hidden and joined his brother and past the table-silver factory they went, past old Mr. Larkin’s barn with this legend painted on it: BE KIND TO ANIMALS, past the Remsens’ fields and the watermans’ dump, past the ice pond and the hair-tonic works, past Mrs. Trimble’s the laundress, past Mr. Brown’s who ate a slice of mince pie and drank a glass of milk when the 9:18 rattled his windows, past the Howards’ and the Townsends’ and the grade crossing and the cemetery and the house of the old man who filed saws and whose windows were the last of the village.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It never rains but it pours. After saying good-by to Moses, Leander and Sarah came home to find this letter from Coverly on the hall table.

“Dear Mother and Father, I have gone away with Moses. I know that I should have told you and that not telling you was like lying but this is only the second lie I have ever told and I will never tell another. The other lie I told was about the screwdriver with the black handle. I stole it from Tinicum’s hardware store. I love Moses so much that I couldn’t be in St. Botolphs if he wasn’t there. But we are not going to be together because we thought that if we separated we would have a better chance of proving our self-reliance to Cousin Honora. I am going to New York and work for Cousin Mildred’s husband in his carpet factory and as soon as I have a place to live in I will write and tell you my address. I have twenty-five dollars.

“I love you both and would not want to hurt your feelings and I know there is no place finer in the world than St. Botolphs and our house and when I have made my mark I am coming back. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. But now I am old enough to go out in the world and make my fortune. I can tell this because I have so many ideas about life where I never had any ideas before. I have taken the framed copy of Kiplings IF with me and I will think about this and about all the great men I have read about and I will go to Church.

“Your loving son, Coverly.”

And two days later Rosalie’s parents telephoned to say that they would pick up Rosalie in an hour. They were driving to Oysterville. Soon after this a long black car that would have opened Emerson Cavis’ eyes came up the driveway at West Farm and Rosalie ran down the path to greet her parents. “Where did you get that green dress?” Sarah heard Mrs. Young ask her daughter. It was the first or at least the second thing she said. Then they got out of the car and Rosalie, blushing and as confused and embarrassed as a child, introduced them to Sarah. As soon as Mrs. Young had shaken Sarah’s hand she turned to Rosalie and asked, “Guess what I found yesterday? I found your scarab bracelet. I found it in my top bureau drawer. Yesterday morning before we had planned to go to Oysterville I decided to clean out my top bureau drawer. I just took the whole thing and dumped it out onto my bed—just dumped it out onto my bed and lo and behold there was your scarab bracelet.”

“I’ll go up and finish packing,” said Rosalie, blushing and blushing, and she went in, leaving