And a voice answered:
"Man-alive!"
There was Nan, his girl, she who had jilted him, she whom Storm had seen, her fingers stiff with cramp as she sewed shirts, beside a window, looking out upon the Atlantic sea, crying, and crying for him. She came across the pasture through the tall flowers, walked with a healthy stride, swinging a sunbonnet, a nut-brown lass freckled, dimpled, laughing, shouting to him that greeting out of the lost years, "Why, man alive!"
He seized her to his breast, and if he did rumple her shirt-waist, he didn't give a damn, while he verified each dimple with a kiss, and took the freckles wholesale.
By her prim and downcast virginity, in her fresh crisp beauty, for every grace, for every charm, for everlasting love, he found a litany of thanksgivings, and most of all for her forgiveness, for her tolerance of his misdeeds.
"Your folks," she said at last, "is waiting. They said I'd best come to fetch you."
"But"—he was puzzled—"what are you doing here in the Injun country? What's this about the folks?"
"But, Man-alive, this isn't the Injun Country. Why, you're dreaming!"
"Then let me go on dreaming!" answered Man-alive. "And take me to the folks. Where are we, anyways?"
"In Summerland," she said. "Our town is yonder behind these bushes, but we must give the people time to get things fixed."