When she regarded him, as she did now, there was always a flash of flame in her face, a wimple of anguish passing on her features, an explosion, as it were, of some deep and surging passion, covered in; hidden, like molten lava in some half-dead crater, its dull surface cracking here and there with seams of awful light which drew together swiftly. Now for the moment the little play went on in her face.
Then she smiled, for he was near.
“Hello, Kid,” she said, “how’s all?”
The boy smiled back and he was like her as two peas are like each other—the same golden skin, the same mouth, the same blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
But there the likeness ended, for where Nance was a delight to the eye in her physical perfection, the boy hung lopsided, his left shoulder drooping, his left leg grotesquely bandied.
But the joy of life was in him as it was in Nance, despite his misfortune.
“Whew!” he said, “it’s gettin’ warm a-ready. Pretty near melted working in th’ garden today. Got three beds ready. Earth works up fine as sand.”
“So it does in the field,” said Nance as she followed the mother into the cabin, “it’s like mould and ashes and all the good things of the land worked in together. It smells as fresh as they say the sea winds smell. Each time I work it, it seems wilder and sweeter—old lady earth sending out her alluring promise.”
“Land sakes, girl,” said Mrs. Allison, “where do you get such fancies!”
“Where do you suppose?” said Nance, “out of the earth herself. She tells me a-many things here on Nameless—such as the value of patience, an’ how to be strong in adversity. I’ve never had the schools, not since those long-back days in Missouri, but I’ve got my Bible and I’ve got the land. And I’ve got the sky and the hills and the river, too. If a body can’t learn from them he’s poor stuff inside. Mighty poor.”