He had seemed so towering, so enduring, that preacher father. Yet when the frail mother went the strong man followed within a year. So then there was nothing to do but go home to Green Valley. He went. And the spirit of the vivid little mother seemed to have come with him. Every day that he spent in the town that had reared her seemed to bring her nearer. He could picture her going about the sunny roads and friendly streets and stopping to chat and neighbor with Green Valley folks.
So he too roamed over the town and chatted and neighbored as he felt she would have done. That was how he came to know every nook and cranny, every turn of the happily straying roads and all the lame, odd, damaged and droll characters that make a town home just as the broken-nosed pitcher, the cracked old mirror in an up-stairs bedroom, and the sagging old armchair in the shadowy corner of the sitting room make home.
Not only did he come to know these people but he understood them. For his was the quick eye and interpreting heart willed him by a great father and an equally great mother. And because he came into Green Valley with a fresh mind and a keen appetite for life nothing escaped him, not even old Mrs. Rosenwinkle sitting in paralyzed patience beside the open window of her little blind house.
He was strolling one day up the little grassy lane, thinking that it led into the cool, thick grove back of the little house that stared so blindly out into the green world. He had been following a new bird and it had darted into the grove. So he came upon the little house and the still grim old soul who sat at the open window as if to guard that little end of the world.
It was a snug, still spot, that little green lane, and was so carpeted with thick grasses and screened with verdure that the harsh noises of a chattering, working world could not ruffle its peace and serenity. Cynthia's son filled it and the still, lonely old woman was fascinated with his bigness, his merry gladness, but most of all with his understanding friendliness. She told him all her story, her past trials and present griefs. And he told her strange things about people he had seen in other parts of the world, blind people living in foul alleys instead of sunny lanes, crippled ones with neither home nor kin of any kind. He told her much but made no effort to convince her that the earth was round, and when he went he left with her the very fine pair of field glasses with which he had been tracking the wonderful song bird that had escaped him. He showed her how to use them and for the first time in fifteen years old Mrs. Rosenwinkle forgot that she was paralyzed.
When he came in to his supper that evening Cynthia's son wanted to know why old Mrs. Rosenwinkle couldn't have a wheel-chair, one of those that she could work with her hands. He said that he thought she must be pretty tired sitting beside that window even if it was open. And why couldn't she have a window on each of the other sides of her room?
Grandma stared.
"My stars—boy! There's no reason that I know of why that old body can't have a wheel chair or more windows. Only Green Valley hasn't ever thought of it. She's always been so set in her notions and so out of the way of things that I expect we have forgotten her."
The third time that Cynthia's son brought little Jim Tumley home because the little man's wandering feet could not find their way to shelter, he wanted to know why little Jim was not in the choir. So Grandma told him, and it was his turn to be puzzled.
"But I don't understand. The church is for the weak, the needy, the blind, maimed and foolish who don't know how to seek happiness wisely. The happy, strong, sensible people don't, as a matter of fact, need looking after," said Cynthia's son.