Tom-John Benson did not come up to Moon mountain the following week, nor the next. But at the end of the third week he appeared to take Belle-Ann below to Beattyville and across the Kentucky River to the mission school at Proctor.
He came riding a strong, mountain horse and leading another for Belle-Ann. He unwrapped a huge bundle, and displayed an entire new outfit for the girl—two blue sailor dresses with white collars, shoes, hat, and kindred articles of apparel.
Belle-Ann dressed herself in these store things; and while Slab prepared a lunch for Benson, she walked out and down toward the spring, where she thought Lem was lingering. But Lem was not there, and she continued on to the old honeybee tree, where he sat on a log in deep meditation.
He wished to see her alone. He knew she would find him.
He looked up with a smile when he saw her trim, round figure approach, beautiful even in the cheap clothes.
She tossed the black curls from her oval face, smiled back at him, and stood demurely waiting his approval of her apparel.
"Yo' sho' do look purty, Belle-Ann," he observed. "Air yore pap ready yet?"
"Yes. When he's done his snack, I 'low we-uns 'll be goin', Lem," she answered, with an assumed cheerfulness she was far from feeling.
Although her heart ached, she had determined before she came to meet Lem that she would not cry. She had been steeling herself for days for the ordeal of this parting. Down in the depth of her heart she held fast to one great purpose; and if she gave way to her feelings and cried, she knew that it would be shattered.
"I 'lowed yo'-all wanted t' say good-by, Lem," she said presently. He aroused himself and stood up before her, his eyes full of a meaning she had never seen there before.