Although the mound of Maw Lutts, in the scrub orchard behind the log barn, was green again for the third time, her beloved flowers had come back to earth each year with reassuring, tender messages for Belle-Ann Benson, who had adopted them and had nourished and tended and cherished them with a pathetic devotion.
Belle-Ann knew their language well. And when they died—more than at any other season—the kindly, smiling face of old Maw Lutts followed the girl all through the chilly fall days.
It was Belle-Ann who had folded Maw Lutts's two hands, one upon the other, back on that terrible day. It was Belle-Ann whom the men found after the battle, crouching in despair over the dear, still form lying in the yard, and crying out to God for Him to make the mute lips speak back to her.
Belle-Ann had never known her own mother, but she had found a mother in Maw Lutts. So it was Belle-Ann who fed the martins, and encouraged the wild birds, and the tame squirrels Maw Lutts had loved.
The Lutts family now consisted of the old man, two boys, the adopted girl and an old negro who had fled from Lexington when a boy, in the first days of the Rebellion, and who subsequently had found sanctuary at the Lutts abode. He had been permitted to remain because no form of persuasion could induce him to leave the premises, once fed, and had the distinction of being the only negro on Hellsfork.
Belle-Ann was a daughter by proxy, since her own mother had died in her babyhood and Maw Lutts had opened her heart and home to the child. Belle-Ann was now some months past sixteen and her unusual physical beauty was noted throughout the mountain community and wondered at by the few strangers who chanced to reach the isolated cabin on Moon mountain.
To-night the girl dropped a wooden bucket and gourd after watering the plants, and walked briskly over the carpet of shadows, stepped out under the radiant moon and stood gazing intently up to Eagle Crown, where she saw the magnified outlines of Cap Lutts against the sky.
Near by a huge witch-elm butt, sawed into three steps, shaped a horse-block. Upon the topmost step of the block she seated herself. Her brow puckered slightly and she waited with an expectant air. Even the pale moonlight revealed her marked loveliness.
Her form was tall for sixteen, with that subtle grace wholly undefinable. Clinging about her head and mantling her shoulders, a mass of natural curls clustered in riotous abundance, shimmering like polished ebony in the moon's rays.
Her features were chiseled with a delicate, hellenic touch, and sweetly oval. Her thin nose was straight and short and small; and her red mouth told of unfathomable depths of emotion. Her wide, limpid eyes were like two blue patches of early June sky.