It was Lucy Upton, grown much taller now, as youth develops rapidly on
the border, a creature nourished into physical perfection first by the
good blood that was in her, then developed in the open air, and by work,
neither too little nor too much.
She reached the spring, and setting the pail by its side looked down at
the cool, gushing stream. It invited her and she ran her white rounded
arm through it, making curves and oblongs that were gone before they
were finished. She was in a thoughtful mood. Once or twice she looked at
the forest, and each time that she looked she shivered because the
shadow of the wilderness was then very heavy upon her.
Silas Pennypacker, the schoolmaster, came to the spring while she was
there, and they spoke together, because they were great friends, these
two. He was unchanged, the same strong gray man, with the ruddy face. He
was not unhappy here despite the seeming incongruity of his presence.
The wilderness appealed to him too in a way, he was the intellectual
leader of the colony and almost everything that his nature called for
met with a response.
"The spring is here, Lucy," he said, "and it has been an easy winter.
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