And trumpet blast there was; and armor rang
Amid that leafy world, and now and then
Strange songs were sung in tongues of outland men.
"It is something like that that I feel for any place—and perhaps now it will be so for this and every place! It was such a blossom and now it is such a tree. All hangs therein, peoples and nations, things past and things to come! When I go away I shall find it so in any place."
"That is what you will do—and I also. Everywhere that Tree, that Man, that God!"
The vale widened at the overseer's house. The sycamore by the river stretched in the sun its great arms of white and brown, and these and the blue vault made a pattern. A dozen turkeys crossed the path in a stately, slow-stepping procession. Mary Carter was singing in the house, and little Roger singing after her. As they approached the tree and the bench around it other voices reached them; then one voice reading aloud. They saw the two Danes seated there—Frances, reading a letter. "So I did travel with you and Mr. Dane. It was so wonderful—it is all around me now! I don't clearly remember little, sharp bits of it, but I remember the whole. It has shown me a lot of things. I don't any longer mind living. It's funny, but father, too—"
Frances looked up as Curtin and Anna stepped under the tree. Bright tears stood in her eyes. She shook them away and smiled at the two. "It's a letter from the crippled boy I told you about—"
The four walked back to Sweet Rocket House. "Robert and I have but a week longer. But this place tempers the wind of the whole year. It drops honey into winter days."
Curtin asked Robert Dane, "Forth from here you go on with the work you are doing?"
"Of course. That is a department of this. But I wish to work without bitterness or violence."