The mountain was a lonely place for children, after all. Even though Lane braved the temporary isolation, and the girls occasionally had spend-the-day parties at the cottage, it was usually deserted except for Pelham and his imaginary companions.
He learned all of its moods. There was the plentiful springtime, when it blossomed a flood of unexpected beauty. Rich summer brought blackberries, dewberries, and hills rioting with azalea and jasmine. Autumn furnished muscadines by the creek beds, hydrangeas, and the sudden glory of changing leaves. Winter was a black-boughed multiplication of the hilly vistas.
The boys lived in dog-tents several summers. Old Peter built them a tree house in a big oak near a fallen wild cherry tree; when they slept here, the floor rocked and swung all night; they were like sailors buoyed upon a sea of restless leaves. Thus the nights revealed the mountain as personally and intimately as the days.
This close contact with it had another effect. It cut Pelham off effectually from the city boys, and forced him to a high degree of self-reliance, both as to body and mind. The wiry legs toughened, the arms grew long and able to swing him from bough to bough of the big trees, the shoulders spread strongly apart. His surplus energy was transmuted into an adaptable, powerful body.
Greater than this was the other effect. He felt safe, with the mountain as ally; not even his father could touch him, in its secret haunts. An unconscious sense of self-completeness, a rooted belief in his own and every person's liberty, became an integer of his faith.
Thus he grew away from all other people, except his mother. To her he was drawn closer, particularly when her relationship with Paul grew strained. This had been especially obvious after the birth of Ned, the fifth baby; the father had had sharp words with Mary about it.
"It was all right for Mother Barbour to have six; people had more children then. Two of them died, anyhow. It's different now."
"But, Paul,——" The calloused injustice of it silenced her.
He watched her averted face. "I see Mamie Charlton's getting divorced. Jack got tired of her and her eternal children. I saw her the other day.... She's getting old. Too many children responsible for it."
She flinched dumbly before his brutality.