Indian summer came again to Misery, flaunting woodland banners of
crimson and scarlet and orange, but to Sally the season brought only
heart-achy remembrances of last autumn, when Samson had softened his
stoicism as the haze had softened the horizon. He had sent her a few
brief letters--not written, but plainly printed. He selected short
words--as much like the primer as possible, for no other messages could
she read.
There were times in plenty when he wished to pour out to her
torrents of feeling, and it was such feeling as would have carried
comfort to her lonely little heart. He wished to tell frankly of what a
good friend he had made, and how this friendship made him more able to
realize that other feeling--his love for Sally. There was in his mind
no suspicion--as yet--that these two girls might ever stand in conflict
as to right-of-way. But the letters he wished to write were not the
sort he cared to have read to the girl by the evangelist-doctor or the
district-school teacher, and alone she could have made nothing of them.
However, "I love you" are easy words--and those he always included.
The Widow Miller had been ailing for months, and, though the local
physician diagnosed the condition as being "right porely," he knew that
the specter of tuberculosis which stalks through these badly lighted
and ventilated houses was stretching out its fingers to touch her
shrunken chest. This had meant that Sally had to forego the evening
hours of study, because of the weariness that followed the day of
nursing and household drudgery. Autumn seemed to bring to her mother a
slight improvement, and Sally could again sometimes steal away with her
slate and book, to sit alone on the big bowlder, and study. But,
oftentimes, the print on the page, or the scrawl on the slate, became
blurred. Nowadays, the tears came weakly to her eyes, and, instead of
hating herself for them and dashing them fiercely away, as she would
have done a year ago, she sat listlessly, and gazed across the flaring
hills.
Even the tuneful glory of the burgundy and scarlet mountains hurt her
into wincing--for was it not the clarion of Beauty that Samson had
heard--and in answer to which he had left her? So, she would sit, and
let her eyes wander, and try to imagine the sort of picture those same
very hungry eyes would see, could she rip away the curtain of purple
distance, and look in on him--wherever he was. And, in imagining such a
picture, she was hampered by no actual knowledge of the world in which
he lived--it was all a fairy-tale world, one which her imagination
shaped and colored fantastically. Then, she would take out one of his
occasional letters, and her face would grow somewhat rapt, as she
spelled out the familiar, "I love you," which was to her the soul of
the message. The rest was unimportant.