He handled a hoe on his first day from
dawn till dark in a hot field, and all the while the mighty wilderness
about him was crying out to him in many voices. While the sun glowed
upon him, and the sweat ran down his face he could see the deep cool
shade of the forest--how restful and peaceful it looked there! He knew a
sheltered glade where the buffalo were feeding, he could find the deer
reposing in a thicket, and to the westward was a new region of hills and
clear brooks, over which he might be the first white man to roam.
His blood tingled with his thoughts, but he never said a word, only
bending lower to his task, and hardening his resolve. The voices of the
wilderness might call, and he could not keep from hearing them, but he
need not go. The amount of work he did that day was wonderful to all who
saw, his vast strength put him far ahead of all others and back of his
strength was his will. But they said nothing and he was glad they did
not speak.
When he went home in the dusk he overtook Lucy Upton near the palisade.
She was in the same red dress that she wore when she ran the gantlet and
in the twilight it seemed to be tinged to a deeper scarlet.
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