Again he held her to his heart in a long embrace, and, when at last he walked down the trail into the desert, he still felt her tears on his cheek, her kisses on his lips, and her heart against his own.
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LITTLE SCHOOL-TEACHER
On a warm day in May, a day which opens the crab-apple blossoms and sets the bees humming, and the children longing for a chance to pull off shoes and stockings and go wading in the brook; on such a day the door of the little schoolhouse stood open and the sunlight lay in a long patch across the floor toward the “teacher’s desk,” and the breeze came in and tossed a stray curl about her forehead, and the children turned their heads often to look at the round clock on the wall, watching for the slowly moving hands to point to the hour of four.
It was a mixed school. Children of all ages were there, from naughty little Johnnie Cole of five to Mary Burt and Hilton Le Moyne of seventeen and nineteen, who were in algebra and the sixth reader. It was well known by the rest of the children why Hilton Le Moyne lingered in the school this year all through May and June, instead of leaving in April, as usual, to help his uncle on the farm. It was “Teacher.” He was in love with her, and always waited after school, hoping for a chance to walk home with her.