There was a scornful wave of her hand as she indicated the inoffensive country.
She pulled on her sunbonnet with a sudden jerk.
“What could she do?” She asked the question hopelessly, and the very trees seemed to mock her with their rustling whispers.
She could do nothing! She was only a farmer’s daughter! She must bake, roast and boil, weed the garden, tend the chickens, and last but not least, she must marry some stupid farmer and live exactly the life that her mother had lived before her.
“I won’t do it!” she cried, angrily, when she had reached this point in her thoughts.
“I’ll never submit to it! Never! Never! I will make a name somehow, somewhere, some time! Do you hear me, you glorious old sun? I will do it! I swear it!”
With a sudden impulse she lifted her hand above her head. The setting sun threw a shaft of light directly across her path which clothed her in a shining radiance as her vow was registered.
The sky was darkening when Marion drew her sunbonnet on again and started slowly down the hill toward her father’s pasture.
She let down the bars at the entrance to the pasture lot easily with her strong, white hands. There were five of the patient creatures awaiting her coming. The sixth had strayed a little, so she strolled about, calling to it, through the straggling brush and birches.
Suddenly there came the unmistakable patter of bare feet along the road; Marion listened a moment and then went on with her search.