“I can’t bear it,” sobbed Emily to the rosebushes.
A few late roses nodded at her; the Wind Woman combed and waved and stirred the long green grasses on the graves where proud Murrays, men and women, slept calmly, unstirred by old feuds and passions; the September sunlight shone beyond on old harvest fields mellowly bright and serene, and very softly against its green, shrub-hung bank, purred and lapped the blue Blair Water.
“I don’t see why God doesn’t stop Lofty John,” said Emily passionately. Surely the New Moon Murrays had a right to expect that much from Providence.
Teddy came whistling down the pasture, the notes of his tune blowing across the Blair Water like elfin drops of sound, vaulted the graveyard fence and perched his lean, graceful body irreverently on the “Here I stay” of Great-Grandmother Murray’s flat tombstone.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“Everything’s the matter,” said Emily, a little crossly. Teddy had no business to be looking so cheerful. She was used to more sympathy from Teddy and it aggravated her not to find it. “Don’t you know Lofty John is going to begin cutting down the bush Monday?”
Teddy nodded.
“Yep. Ilse told me. But look here, Emily, I’ve thought of something. Lofty John wouldn’t dare cut down that bush if the priest told him not to, would he?”
“Why?”