She did not
even wonder what it was that moved him so strangely and dreadfully.
There was no room for thought in the profound awed impersonal sympathy
which with a great hush came upon her at the sight of another human
being in pain.
He felt some intimate emanation from her, turned towards her, and for
the faintest fraction of time they looked at each other through a rent
in the veil of life.
* * * * *
Cousin Hetty's old voice called them cheerfully, "Over here, this way
under the willow-tree."
They turned in that direction, to hear her saying, ". . . that was in 1763
and of course they came on horseback, using the Indian trails the men
had learned during the French-and-Indian wars. Great-grandmother (she
was a twelve-year-old girl then) had brought along a willow switch from
their home in Connecticut. When the whole lot of them decided to settle
here in the valley, and her folks took this land to be theirs, she stuck
her willow switch into the ground, alongside the brook here, and this is
the tree it grew to be. Looks pretty battered up, don't it, like other
old folks."
Mr. Welles tipped his pale, quiet face back to look up at the great
tree, stretching its huge, stiff old limbs mutilated by time and
weather, across the tiny, crystal brook dimpling and smiling and
murmuring among its many-colored pebbles.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253