There had been such a June in Eagle County. Usually it was a month of moods, with of and mid-summer heat; this year, day day in a of beauty. Every a from the hills. Toward it up great of white cloud that a over and woods; then the clouds again, and the western light its on the valley.
On such an Charity Royall on a above a hollow, her pressed to the earth and the warm of the through her. Directly in her line of a branch its white flowers and blue-green against the sky. Just beyond, a of sweet-fern the of the grass, and a small yellow over them like a of sunshine. This was all she saw; but she felt, above her and about her, the of the the ridge, the of green on spruce-branches, the push of of sweet-fern in the of the the wood, and the of and yellow in the beyond. All this of and of and of was to her on of fragrance. Every and and to its to the in which the of pine-sap over the of and the perfume of fern, and all were in a earth-smell that was like the of some sun-warmed animal.
Charity had there a long time, and sun-warmed as the on which she lay, when there came her and the dancing the of a man's in a large with red mud.
“Oh, don't!” she exclaimed, herself on her and out a hand.
“Don't what?” a voice asked above her head.
“Don't on those flowers, you dolt!” she retorted, to her knees. The paused and then on the branch, and her she saw above her the of a man with a thin beard, and white arms through his shirt.
“Don't you SEE anything, Liff Hyatt?” she him, as he her with the look of a man who has up a wasp's nest.
He grinned. “I you! That's what I come for.”
“Down from where?” she questioned, to up the his had scattered.
He his thumb toward the heights. “Been trees for Dan Targatt.”
Charity on her and looked at him musingly. She was not in the least of Liff Hyatt, though he “came from the Mountain,” and some of the girls ran when they saw him. Among the more he passed for a creature, a of link the and folk, who occasionally came and did a little for a farmer when hands were short. Besides, she the Mountain people would her: Liff himself had told her so once when she was a little girl, and had met him one day at the of lawyer Royall's pasture. “They won't any of 'em touch you up there, f'ever you was to come up.... But I don't s'pose you will,” he had added philosophically, looking at her new shoes, and at the red that Mrs. Royall had in her hair.
Charity had, in truth, any to visit her birthplace. She did not to have it that she was of the Mountain, and was of being in talk with Liff Hyatt. But today she was not sorry to have him appear. A great many had to her since the day when Lucius Harney had entered the doors of the Hatchard Memorial, but none, perhaps, so as the of her it a to be on good terms with Liff Hyatt. She to look up at his weather-beaten face, with the and the yellow of a animal. “I wonder if he's related to me?” she thought, with a of disdain.
“Is there any in the house by the swamp, up under Porcupine?” she presently asked in an tone.
Liff Hyatt, for a while, her with surprise; then he his and his weight from one to the other.
“There's always the same in the house,” he said with his grin.
“They're from up your way, ain't they?”
“Their name's the same as mine,” he uncertainly.
Charity still him with eyes. “See here, I want to go there some day and take a with me that's with us. He's up in these parts pictures.”
She did not offer to this statement. It was too Liff Hyatt's for the attempt to be making. “He wants to see the house, and go all over it,” she pursued.
Liff was still his through his of straw-colored hair. “Is it a from the city?” he asked.
“Yes. He pictures of things. He's there now the Bonner house.” She pointed to a just visible over the of the the wood.
“The Bonner house?” Liff incredulously.
“Yes. You won't understand—and it don't matter. All I say is: he's going to the Hyatts' in a day or two.”
Liff looked more and more perplexed. “Bash is sometimes in the afternoons.”
She her back, her full on Hyatt's. “I'm too: you tell him.”
“They won't none of them trouble you, the Hyatts won't. What d'you want a take a with you though?”
“I've told you, haven't I? You've got to tell Bash Hyatt.”
He looked away at the on the horizon; then his to the chimney-top the pasture.
“He's there now?”
“Yes.”
He his weight again, his arms, and to survey the landscape. “Well, so long,” he said at last, inconclusively; and away he up the hillside. From the above her, he paused to call down: “I wouldn't go there a Sunday”; then he on till the trees closed in on him. Presently, from high overhead, Charity the ring of his axe.
She on the warm ridge, of many that the woodsman's had up in her. She nothing of her early life, and had any about it: only a to the of her memory where images lingered. But all that had to her the last had her to the sleeping depths. She had to herself, and that had to do with her past was by this curiosity.
She more than the of from the Mountain; but it was no longer to her. Everything that in any way her was alive and vivid: the had they were a part of herself.
“I wonder if Liff Hyatt who my mother was?” she mused; and it her with a of to think that some woman who was once and slight, with quick of the blood like hers, had her in her breast, and her sleeping. She had always of her mother as so long as to be no more than a pinch of earth; but now it to her that the once-young woman might be alive, and and elf-locked like the woman she had sometimes in the door of the house that Lucius Harney wanted to draw.
The him to the point in her mind, and she away from the by Liff Hyatt's presence. Speculations the past not her long when the present was so rich, the so rosy, and when Lucius Harney, a stone's away, was over his sketch-book, frowning, calculating, measuring, and then his with the that had its over everything.
She to her feet, but as she did so she saw him up the and on the to wait. When he was and one of “his houses,” as she called them, she often away by herself into the or up the hillside. It was from that she did so: from a of that came to her most when her companion, in his job, her and her to his least allusion, and into a on art and life. To avoid the of with a blank face, and also to the of the of the houses which he would up their and open his sketch-book, she away to some spot from which, without being seen, she watch him at work, or at least look on the house he was drawing. She had not been displeased, at first, to have it to North Dormer and the neighborhood that she was Miss Hatchard's about the country in the he had of lawyer Royall. She had always to herself, from village love-making, without her was to the of her origin, or she was herself for a more fate. Sometimes she the other girls their preoccupations, their long hours of with one of the who still in the village; but when she pictured herself her or a new on her for Ben Fry or one of the Sollas boys the and she into indifference.
Now she the meaning of her and reluctances. She had learned what she was when Lucius Harney, looking at her for the time, had the of his speech, and on the of her desk. But another of had been in her: a terror of to the of her happiness. She was not sorry to have the neighbors her of “going with” a man from the city; but she did not want it to all the how many hours of the long June days she with him. What she most was that the should Mr. Royall. Charity was aware that her the of the man under she lived; and in of the which North Dormer to she had always that, on the day when she too open a preference, Mr. Royall might, as she phrased it, make her “pay for it.” How, she did not know; and her was the it was undefinable. If she had been the of one of the village she would have been less apprehensive: Mr. Royall not prevent her marrying when she to. But that “going with a city fellow” was a different and less affair: almost every village a of the venture. And her of Mr. Royall's gave a to the hours she with Harney, and her, at the same time, of being too with him.
As he approached she rose to her knees, her arms above her with the that was her way of a well-being.
“I'm going to take you to that house up under Porcupine,” she announced.
“What house? Oh, yes; that place near the swamp, with the gipsy-looking people about. It's that a house with of should have been in such a place. But the people were a sulky-looking lot—do you they'll let us in?”
“They'll do I tell them,” she said with assurance.
He himself her. “Will they?” he with a smile. “Well, I should like to see what's left the house. And I should like to have a talk with the people. Who was it who was telling me the other day that they had come from the Mountain?”
Charity a look at him. It was the time he had spoken of the Mountain as a of the landscape. What else did he know about it, and about her relation to it? Her to with the of which she to every slight.
“The Mountain? I ain't of the Mountain!”
Her of to him. He breast-down on the grass, off of and pressing them against his lips. Far off, above the of the nearer hills, the Mountain itself up against a yellow sunset.
“I must go up there some day: I want to see it,” he continued.
Her heart-beats and she again to his profile. It was of all intention.
“What'd you want to go up the Mountain for?”
“Why, it must be a place. There's a up there, you know: of out-laws, a little kingdom. Of you've them spoken of; but I'm told they have nothing to do with the people in the valleys—rather look on them, in fact. I they're customers; but they must have a good of character.”
She did not know what he meant by having a good of character; but his was of admiration, and her curiosity. It her now as that she so little about the Mountain. She had asked, and no one had offered to her. North Dormer took the Mountain for granted, and its by an than by criticism.
“It's queer, you know,” he continued, “that, just over there, on top of that hill, there should be a of people who don't give a for anybody.”
The her. They the to her own and defiances, and she to have him tell her more.
“I don't know much about them. Have they always been there?”
“Nobody to know how long. Down at Creston they told me that the are to have been men who on the railway that was or fifty years ago Springfield and Nettleton. Some of them took to drink, or got into trouble with the police, and off—disappeared into the woods. A year or two later there was a report that they were up on the Mountain. Then I others joined them—and children were born. Now they say there are over a hundred people up there. They to be the of the valleys. No school, no church—and no goes up to see what they're about. But don't people talk of them at North Dormer?”
“I don't know. They say they're bad.”
He laughed. “Do they? We'll go and see, shall we?”
She at the suggestion, and her to his. “You heard, I suppose—I come from there. They me when I was little.”
“You?” He himself on his elbow, looking at her with interest. “You're from the Mountain? How curious! I that's why you're so different....”
Her happy blood her to the forehead. He was her—and her she came from the Mountain!
“Am I... different?” she triumphed, with wonder.
“Oh, awfully!” He up her hand and a on the knuckles.
“Come,” he said, “let's be off.” He up and the from his clothes. “What a good day! Where are you going to take me tomorrow?”
