"How do I make it hard for you, pappa?" was her quick new question. "O, Lord, what a young un," he said, in deeper despair. "Come, ain't it about time for you to be leggin' it toward school? Give me a rest, Rosie. But I'll answer all your questions—don't ask about them things of the children—come right to me always—only don't pile 'em all on me to once."
"All right, pappa, I won't."
"That's a good old soul!" he said, patting her on the back. After she had gone he sat down on the feed-box and wiped his face. "I wonder how women do explain things like that to girls," he thought. "I'll ask the preacher's wife to explain it—no, I won't. I'll do it myself, and I'll get her books to read about it—good books."
It was evidence of the girl's innate strength and purity of soul that the long succession of hired hands had not poisoned her mind. They soon discovered, however, the complete confidence between the father and child, and knew that their words and actions would be taken straight to John as soon as night came and Rose climbed into his lap. This made them careful before her, and the shame of their words and stories came to the child's ears only in fragments.
Dutcher concluded that he should have a woman in the house, and so sent back to Pennsylvania for his sister, lately widowed. Rose looked forward to seeing her aunt with the wildest delight. She went with her father down the valley to Bluff Siding to meet her. Bluff Siding was the only town the child knew, and it was a wonderful thing to go to town.
As they stood on the platform, waiting, her eyes swept along the great curve of the rails to the east, and suddenly, like a pain in the heart, came her first realization of distance, of the infinity of the world.
"Where does it go to, pappa?"
"O, a long way off. To Madison, Chicago, and Pennsylvany."
"How far is it? Could we go there with old Barney and Nell?"
"O, no. If we drove there it would take us days and days, and the wheat would grow up and get yellow, an' the snow come, almost, before we'd get there."