The previous summer had found them together with their elders upon a camping trip which was to remain in the minds of all of them as one of the most delightful experiences of their lives. On this excursion they had seen something of the lives of the mountaineers of the Blue Ridge far back from the railroads and the main routes of travel, and had resolved that at the first opportunity they would return to pass on to these untaught, friendly, wistful folk some of the knowledge which had been bountifully given them. But this thought had slipped out of sight during the winter, for each girl had been much occupied after her own fashion. Now, with the return of summer, their thoughts turned naturally to the mountains. Back of their desire to be useful to their less fortunate neighbors, was the hunger for life in the open. They dreamed of the low-lying valleys bathed in purple mist, of the flaming azalea burning on the higher slopes, of the innumerable flowers springing to life along the adventurous pathways, of the wild beauty of the storms, and the ever-new miracle of sunrise and sunset.
Annie Laurie said good-bye, and Carin and Azalea turned in at the great gate of the Shoals, the beautiful home built by Colonel Atherton, the grandfather of Azalea. But Azalea entered it now, a poor girl, the foster daughter of simple mountain folk, and it was Carin’s parents who owned the fine old place and who lived there in a very different sort of state from that which had obtained in Colonel Atherton’s day. His thought had been all of his own indulgence and glory. Charles Carson and his wife had their greatest happiness in sharing their prosperity with others. They had built up a trade for the handicraft of the mountain people, had lent a hand to several of the enterprises in the town of Lee, and were the chief supporters of a school for the mountain children.
When Mustard and Paprika, the ponies, had been led away by the stable boy, the girls ran up the wide sweeping stairs to Carin’s room to dress for dinner, and as they brushed their hair and changed their frocks, they talked of how they could best approach their parents with their rather madcap plan of going up into the mountains. In the midst of their talk Mrs. Carson came into the room. She kissed them in her gentle way and then held Azalea off with one white jewelled hand, eyeing her with quizzical affection. Azalea returned her look adoringly, for Carin’s mother was the girl’s ideal of what a “beautiful lady” should be. The faint breath of violet perfume which floated from her gowns, the satin sheen of her waving hair, her indescribably soft and musical voice, her gestures, her laugh, all served Azalea as the standard by which she measured charm in women.
“You two have been plotting something,” declared the lady. “I can read conspiracy in your faces—such a pair of telltale faces as you have! Come! What is it?”
She drew Azalea closer to her, and the girl nestled her face for a moment against Mrs. Carson’s soft cheek.
“It’s the mountains, mamma Carson,” she replied. “Carin and I want to go up there and teach school the way we planned last summer. You remember, don’t you?”
“So that’s it! Well, that’s not a very dark conspiracy. There wouldn’t be any objection if we weren’t going abroad.”
“But it’s because you are going abroad, mamma,” cried Carin, “and because I don’t really want to go, that this plan seems so—so timely.”
Well, that was where the argument began. It was continued at the dinner table; it was taken up the next day with the McBirneys as soon as ever they showed their faces in the village, so that they were not, after all, allowed to approach the subject in that gradual and cautious manner advised by Azalea; it was carried to the Reverend Absalom Summers and his wife Barbara. Even Jonathan Summers, aged three, took a hand in it by pulling Azalea’s skirt and saying: “Don’t go! Don’t go.”
Mr. Carson explained the situation to Mr. Summers after this fashion: “It’s not that I am really so keen about taking Carin on this trip; and I certainly have no objection to her making herself useful, but going to live upon a wild mountain among wilder people doesn’t appeal to me as the best thing for young girls to do. I doubt if it would be safe.”