He
talked often now of the old home in the south land, and sometimes
fell into the speech of other days, dropping, for a moment, the
rougher expressions of his associates. But all this was to Sammy
alone. To the world, there was no change in Jim, and he still went
on his long rides with Wash Gibbs. By fall, the place was fixed up
a bit; the fence was rebuilt, the yard trimmed, and another room
added to the cabin.
So the days slipped away over the wood fringed ridges. The soft
green of tree, and of bush, and grassy slope changed to brilliant
gold, and crimson, and russet brown, while the gray blue haze that
hangs always over the hollows took on a purple tone. Then in turn
this purple changed to a deeper, colder blue, when the leaves had
fallen, and the trees showed naked against the winter sky.
With the cold weather, the lessons were continued in the Lane
cabin on the southern slope of Dewey. All day, while the shepherd
was busy at the ranch, Sammy pored over her books; and every
evening the old scholar climbed the hill to direct the work of his
pupil, with long Jim sitting, silent and grim, by the fireside,
listening to the talk, and seeing who knows what visions of the
long ago in the dancing flame.
And so the winter passed, and the spring came again; came, with
its soft beauty of tender green; its wealth of blossoms, and sweet
fragrance of growing things.
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