In the yearling pure-breeds she was first at the Comity Fair. But Eris refused to sell. At the State Fair White Iris beat every Guernsey and every other heifer, pure-breed and grade.
Brookvale Manor offered her three thousand dollars. Odell made her take it, and put the money into the local bank. So, with tears blinding her grey eyes, Eris sold White Iris out of the county. And would not be comforted even by the brand new cheque-book sent to her by the cashier of the White Hills Bank.
The account, however, was in her father’s name.
Now, the horizon of Eris Odell had narrowed as her sphere of activity dwindled after graduation.
Whitewater Farms became her world. Within its confines lay her duties and diversions, both clearly defined.
They were her heritage. No loop-holes offered escape—excepting marriage. And that way out was merely the way in to another and similar prison the boundary of which was a barbed wire fence, and its mathematical centre a manure pit.
She continued to dream of wings. An immense, indefinable longing possessed her in waking hours. But she was only one of the youthful, excited millions, waking after æons to the first instincts that had ruled the human race.
It was the restlessness of the world’s youth that stirred her—Modern Youth opening millions of clear young eyes to gaze upon the wonders of a new Heaven and a new earth, and mad to explore it all from zenith to depths—sky, sea, land, and the waters under the earth. Youth, suddenly crazed by an overwhelming desire for Truth, after æons and æons of lies.