For
days she called and trembled, with wet eyes, listening for the
voice that still answered, though out of hearing, far over the
hills. And Trove, too, was lonely, and there was a kind of longing
in his heart for the music in that voice of the stranger.
IV
The Uphill Road
For Trove it was a day of sowing. The strange old tinker had
filled his heart with a new joy and a new desire. Next morning he
got a ride to Hillsborough--fourteen miles--and came back, reading,
as he walked, a small, green book, its thin pages covered thick
with execrably fine printing, its title "The Works of Shakespeare."
He read the book industriously and with keen pleasure. Allen
complained, shortly, that Shakespeare and the filly had interfered
with the potatoes and the corn.
The filly ceased to take food and sickened for a time after the dam
left her. Trove lay in the stall nights and gave her milk
sweetened to her liking. She grew strong and playful, and forgot
her sorrow, and began to follow him like a dog on his errands up
and down the farm. Trove went to school in the autumn--"Select
school," it was called. A two-mile journey it was, by trail, but a
full three by the wagon road.
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