Colour came with the wild
flowers and song with the wood-thrush. Squirrels played on the
tree-trunks like mischievous children, the brooks sang like happy
human voices through the tremulous underworld and woodpeckers
hammered out the joy of spring, but the awakening only made the
desolate cabin lonelier still. After three warm days in March,
Uncle Billy, the miller, rode up the creek with a hoe over his
shoulder--he had promised this to Hale--for his labour of love in
June's garden. Weeping April passed, May came with rosy face
uplifted, and with the birth of June the laurel emptied its pink-
flecked cups and the rhododendron blazed the way for the summer's
coming with white stars.
Back to the hills came Hale then, and with all their rich beauty
they were as desolate as when he left them bare with winter, for
his mission had miserably failed. His train creaked and twisted
around the benches of the mountains, and up and down ravines into
the hills. The smoke rolled in as usual through the windows and
doors. There was the same crowd of children, slatternly women and
tobacco-spitting men in the dirty day-coaches, and Hale sat among
them--for a Pullman was no longer attached to the train that ran
to the Gap.
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