“You parted as soon as you knew it was wrong? You mean to say you didn’t know right from the first that it was wrong to go off with another woman’s husband—an’ him a draft dodger, too? Oh, you needn’t come back to Hart’s Run an’ tell a tale like that, an’ expect decent folks to go right along an’ treat you like nothing had happened. They won’t do it, I tell you!”
“I don’t expect them to,” Julie said.
“Well, it’s lucky you don’t. Folks won’t stand for any such carryings on. You’ll be put out of the church. Brother Seabrook’ll put you right out—I know he will. I don’t see to save me how you dared to come back.”
“Why, I had to come back here,” Julie cried. “It’s my home—it’s where I belong. Why, I’m rooted here.”
“Well, folks ain’t goin’ to have one thing to do with you, I tell you! I don’t know in my soul what I’m doin’ here right this minute! And other folks ain’t goin’ to have nothing to do with you.”
“No, I reckon not,” Julie answered, “but here’s where I belong just the same.” She looked away out of the window and rested her eyes on the sweep of autumn hills surrounding the village—she who had been for weeks in the city, and a flat country. “Maybe you’re right, an’ folks won’t have anything more to do with me—but—but—the mountains are here, an’ the sun’ll rise an’ set, an’ the snow come in the winter, an’ the sap run in spring. It’s where I belong.”
“Julie Rose! Upon my word I just b’lieve you’ve lost your mind!” the other broke in.
“I’ve found my soul,” Julie interposed beneath her breath.
“There you set, nursing that nasty cat, an’ not carin’ one thing what people think.”
“I care what God thinks.”