The school-teacher's mind said: "The negro is a religious character. He is always willing to talk of the Lord and of heaven."
"All the little torn bits coming together," finished Mancy.
He sat mending the wagon shaft. It came to her, standing watching him, to say something of the distracted and warring earth. His slow smile stole again over his face. "Yes'm. We hurt ourselves right often."
"You call it that—hurting oneself?"
"Yes'm. What do you call it?"
"I don't know.... I suppose it is hurting one's self—suicidal mania!" she thought. "Perhaps all the history I have ever taught has been the story of self hurt and self heal—perhaps we fight our self in Europe and Asia and America. Perhaps, in the tissue wide as space, centers here and centers there are beginning to learn self heal above self hurt—"
She stood looking at the mountains while Mancy worked on at the wagon shaft. Presently she said, "You would say that this was a very lonely place, but I have touched a thousand things since I came that run out and touch everywhere!"
"Mountains aren't walls," said Mancy.
She left the barn and walked on to the orchard. The apples had been gathered, but a few red orbs yet hung from the branches. She walked beneath the trees and she thought of old, dull troubles and anxieties that had attended her life. This morning light seemed at work among them, disintegrating them.