"It's like I could see him. He would take his little books up there and walk the high path. I never have showed you his path. It was his, and he would walk in it, up and down, up and down, and read words I couldn't understand, reading like he was singing. Sometimes I would climb up to him, and he'd take me in his arms and carry me like I was a baby, and read. Sometimes he would sit on a bank of moss under those trees—see near the top by that open spot of sky a right dark place? There are no other trees like them. They are his trees. He would sit with me there and tell me the stories of the strange words; but we never told mother, for she said they were heathen and I mustn't give heed to him." When deeply absorbed, she often lapsed into her old speech. David liked it. He almost wished she would never change it for his. "After father died I hunted and hunted for those little books, but I never could find them."
"You remember him so well, won't you tell me how he looked?"
She slowly brought her eyes down from the mountain top and fixed them on his face. "Sometimes—just for a minute—you make me think of him—but you don't look like him. I never heard any one laugh like he could laugh—and with his eyes, too. He was tall like you, and he carried his shoulders high like you do when you hurry, but he was a dark man. When he stood here in the door of the loom shed, his head touched the top. I thought of it when you stood here a bit ago and had to stoop. He always did that." She lifted her gaze again to the mountain, and was silent.
"Tell me a little more? Just a little? Don't you remember anything he said?"
"He used to preach, but I was too little to remember what he said. They used to have preaching in the schoolhouse, and in winter he used to teach there—when he could get the children to come. They had no books, but he marked with charcoal where they could all see, and showed them writing and figures; but somehow they got the idea he didn't know religion right, and they wouldn't go to hear him any more. Mother says it nigh broke his heart, for he fell to ailing and grew that thin and white he couldn't climb to his path any more." She stopped and put her hand to her throat, as her way was. She too had grown white with the ache of sorrowful remembrance. He thought it cruel to urge her, but felt impelled to ask for more.
"And then?"
"Yes. One day we were all alone sitting right here in the loom shed door. He put one hand on my head, and then he put the other hand under my chin and turned my face to look in his eyes—so great and far—like they could see through your heart. Seems like I can feel the touch of his hand here yet and hear him say: 'Little daughter, never be like the rest. Be separate, and God will send for you some day here on the mountain. He will send for you on the mountain top. He will compass you about and lift you up and you shall be blessed.' Then he kissed me and went into the house. I could hear him still saying it as he walked, 'On the mountain top one will come for you, on the mountain top.' He went in and lay down, and I sat here and waited. It seemed like my heart stood still waiting for him to come back to me, and it must have been more than an hour I sat, and mother came home and went in and found him gone. He never spoke again. He lay there dead."
She paused and drew in a long, sighing breath. "I have never said those words aloud until now, to you, but hundreds of times when I look up on the mountain I have said them in my heart. I reckon he meant I was to bide here until my time was come, and do all like I ought to do it. I did think I could go to school and learn and come back and teach like he used to, and so keep myself separate like he did, but the Lord called me back and laid a hard thing on me, and I must do it. But in my heart I can keep separate like father did."
She rose and stood calmly, her eyes fixed on the mountain. David stood near and longed to touch her passive hand—to lift it to his lips—but forebore to startle her soul by so unusual an act. For all she had given him a confidence she had never bestowed on another, he felt himself held aloof, her spirit withdrawn from him and lifted to the mountain top.