Wilfred promised,and Lahoma entered on the history of her childhood.Wilfred looked and listened joyously,conscious of the unusual scene,alive to the subtle charm of her fearless eyes,her unreserved confidences,the melting harmony of her musical tones.To be sure,she was only a child,but he saw already the promise of the woman.The petals as yet were closed,but the faint sweet fragrance was already astir.He found,too,that in her nature was already developed something not akin to youth,something impersonal,having nothing to do with one's number of years--like the breath of experience,or the ancient freshness of a new day.It was born of the mountains and nourished in the solitude of the plains.
How different the girls of fifteen or sixteen such as he had known in the city or in sophisticated villages in the East!Lahoma had not been so engrossed by trivial activities of exacting days that she had lacked time for thought.Her housekeeping cares were few and devoid of routine,leaving most of the hours of each day for reading,for day-dreaming,for absorbed meditation.Somehow the dreams seemed to linger in,her voice,to hover upon her brow,to form a part of her;and the longings of those dreams were half-veiled in her eyes,looking out shyly as if afraid of wounding her guardians by full revelation.She wanted to meet life,to take a place in the world--but what would then become of Willock and Bill?
Bill used to live seven miles away at the mountain with the precipice,she went on,after she had told about the wonderful window.But it was too far off.When he got to know me,it tired him,walking this far twice a day,morning and night,--didn't it,Bill!So at last Brick and Bill decided to cut some cedars from the mountain and make me a cabin,--they took the dugout to sleep in.There are two rooms in the cabin,one,the kitchen where we eat--and the other,my parlor where I sleep.Some time you shall visit me in the cabin,if Brick and Bill are willing.They made it for me,so I couldn't ask anybody in,unless they said so.
We aren't far enough along,observed Bill,to be shut up together under a roof.
I'd like to have you visit my parlor,Lahoma said somewhat wistfully.I'd like to show you all my books--they were Bill's when we first met him,but since then he's given me everything he's got,haven't you,old Bill!Lahoma leaned over and patted the unyielding shoulder.
Bill stared moodily at the top of the mountain as if in a gloomy trance,hut Wilfred fancied he moved that honored shoulder a trifle nearer the girl.
She resumed,her face glowing with sudden rapture:There are six books--half a dozen!Maybe you've heard of some of them.Bill's read 'em over lots of times.He begins with the first on the shelf and when he's through the row,he just takes 'em up,all over again.I like to read parts of them--the interesting parts.This is the way they stand on the shelf:The
Children of the Abbey--that's Bill's favorite;The Scottish Chiefs,David Copperfield,The Talisman,The Prairie,The Last of the Mohicans.
I like The Children of the Abbey best,too,observed Brick Willock thoughtfully.Lahoma,she's read 'em all to me;that's the way we get through the winter months.They's something softening and enriching about that there Children of the Abbey;and Scottish Chiefs has got some mighty high work in it,too.I tells Lahoma that I guess them two books is just about as near the real thing out in the big world as you can get.David Copperfield is sort of slow;I've went with people that knowed a powerful sight more than them characters in David.I used to drift about with a bunch of fellows that Uriah Heep couldn't have stood up against for five minutes.The Talisman is noble doings,too,but not up-to-date.As for The Prairie and The Last of the Mohicans,them is dissatisfying books,--they make you think,being as you lives in just such quarters,interesting things might happen most any minute--and they never does.
Why,Brick!Lahoma reproached him.THIS has happened--she nodded at Wilfred Compton.Don't you call that interesting?
That's the way I discusses them books,returned Willock with manifest satisfaction.I wasn't never no man to be overawed by no book,which,however high and by whoever wrote,ain't no more like life than a shadow in a pool.Try to grab that shadow,and where is it?Just to go out after game and climb the mountains all day and come home of an evening to sit down to a plate of bacon and eggs,and another of the same,with coffee smoking on the little stove,and Lahoma urging on the feast--that's more of real living than you'd get out of a big library.Ain't it,Bill?
Now WE want to talk,Brick,interposed Lahoma--don't we,Wilfred?
So your cabin was built,Wilfred prompted her,and the men took the dugout.
