"
There was silence for a while. Then Dave spoke again for the
listening ears outside--maliciously:
"I went over to the Gap to see if I couldn't git the place myself
from the company. I believe the Falins ain't goin' to bother us
an' I ain't hankerin' to go West. But I told him that you-all was
goin' to leave the mountains and goin' out thar fer good." There
was another silence.
"He never said a word." Nobody had asked the question, but he was
answering the unspoken one in the heart of June, and that heart
sank like a stone.
"He's goin' away hisself-goin' ter-morrow--goin' to that same
place he went before--England, some feller called it."
Dave had done his work well. June rose unsteadily, and with one
hand on her heart and the other clutching the railing of the
porch, she crept noiselessly along it, staggered like a wounded
thing around the chimney, through the garden and on, still
clutching her heart, to the woods--there to sob it out on the
breast of the only mother she had ever known.
Dave was gone when she came back from the woods--calm, dry-eyed,
pale. Her step-mother had kept her dinner for her, and when she
said she wanted nothing to eat, the old woman answered something
querulous to which June made no answer, but went quietly to
cleaning away the dishes.
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