But the thing which had happened was this: Rose had conceived of distance and great cities.
The next day she said: "Pappa John, I want to go way up on the bluffs. I want to go up to Table Rock where I can see way, way off."
"It's a long climb up there, Rosie. You'll get tired."
But Rosie insisted and together they climbed the hill. Up beyond the pasture—beyond the black-berry patch—beyond the clinging birches in their white jackets—up where the rocks cropped out of the ground and where curious little wave-worn pebbles lay scattered on the scant grass.
Once a glittering rattle-snake lying in the sun awoke, and slipped under a stone like a stream of golden oil, and the child shrank against her father's thigh in horror.
They climbed slowly up the steep grassy slope and stood at last on the flat rock which topped the bluff. Rose stood there, dizzy, out of breath, with her hair blown across her cheek and looked away, at the curving valley and its river gleaming here and there through the willows and elders. It was like looking over an unexplored world to the child. Her eyes expanded and her heart filled with the same ache which came into it when she looked down along the curving railway track. She turned suddenly and fell sobbing against her father.
"Why, Rosie, what's the matter? Poor little girl—she's all tired out, climbin' up here." He sat down and took her on his lap and talked to her of the valley below and where the river went—but she would not look up again.
"I want to go home," she said with hidden face.
On the way down, John rolled a big stone down the hill and as it went bounding, crashing into the forest below, a deer drifted out like a gray shadow and swept along the hillside and over the ridge.
Rose saw it as if in a dream. She did not laugh nor shout. John was troubled by her silence and gravity, but laid it to weariness and took her pick-a-back on the last half mile through the brush.