"Gone!" Under cover of the snow, cliffs slid away, gorges opened, century-old trees disappeared!
"Yes. Winter makes great changes up here in the mountains. Down in the cities you think winter is a time when everything stops and rests and nothing moves. But up here we see it moving. It's like watching God fix things up, cut out a bit here and there, tinker round making improvements. Nothing ain't ever fixed to stay forever. It stands to reason it can't be. There wouldn't be any life to things that's fixed like that. Things keep moving and changing. Why, that doesn't frighten you, does it?" he asked curiously at the look in Anne's eyes. "There ain't nothing to be afraid of, Mrs. Barton."
"I'm—not afraid," Anne whispered. "Only I—don't want it to change. I want it to stay like this—perfect always, quiet and still."
Timothy shook his head and smiled gently. "Oh, no, it wouldn't be good that way. You wait and see. You'll love it. Why, me and mother's often spoke about it—when we go, we'd like to be out in a big storm and just be swept down. Not be sick and helpless for a long time, just have God throw us in along of some change He's making and use us again in another way, wouldn't we, ma?"
The old woman nodded. "It would be a grand way to go. I suppose we'd get there in the end just the same, even if we was buried in one of them tight little city cemeteries under a marble slab like people put over the dead as if they wanted to keep them shut up in their little boxes forever; or even if we was burned like some people hold with, we'd get back into the earth somehow. But folks have their preference, and me and pa'd like to go, as he says, in some storm that'd sweep us out clean and sudden into the midst of things."
Into the midst of things!
For a few moments Anne stood motionless, her hands gripping the back of the chair, staring at the old people, who, lost in the coming of the snow, seemed already to have slipped away together—into the midst of things. Then, without a word, she went quickly out of the room and upstairs to her own.
It was very cold but she threw the window wide and leaned far out into the night.
In the full moonlight, the peak of Dana rose, the burnished helmet of a giant warrior leading the mountains into the coming battle. In the black secrecy of the granite gorges the courier wind ran swiftly with its orders. The trees took counsel together. Everything was whispering, moving, preparing. Nothing was motionless any longer in the security of its own permanence. Everything was awaiting now the fulfillment of the law beyond its power to anticipate, change, or deviate from its own purpose.
In a few weeks now the snow would come. Mountain sides would slip away. Giant trees go crashing down. New rivers open. God would tinker with the world! Make his changes, form it to his further plan.