Summer | Page 4

see, and I'm hunting up old houses in
these parts."
She stared. "Old houses? Everything's old in North Dormer, isn't it?
The folks are, anyhow."
He laughed, and wandered away again.
"Haven't you any kind of a history of the place? I think there was one
written about 1840: a book or pamphlet about its first settlement," he
presently said from the farther end of the room.
She pressed her crochet hook against her lip and pondered. There was
such a work, she knew: "North Dormer and the Early Townships of
Eagle County." She had a special grudge against it because it was a
limp weakly book that was always either falling off the shelf or
slipping back and disappearing if one squeezed it in between sustaining
volumes. She remembered, the last time she had picked it up,
wondering how anyone could have taken the trouble to write a book
about North Dormer and its neighbours: Dormer, Hamblin, Creston and
Creston River. She knew them all, mere lost clusters of houses in the
folds of the desolate ridges: Dormer, where North Dormer went for its

apples; Creston River, where there used to be a paper-mill, and its grey
walls stood decaying by the stream; and Hamblin, where the first snow
always fell. Such were their titles to fame.
She got up and began to move about vaguely before the shelves. But
she had no idea where she had last put the book, and something told her
that it was going to play her its usual trick and remain invisible. It was
not one of her lucky days.
"I guess it's somewhere," she said, to prove her zeal; but she spoke
without conviction, and felt that her words conveyed none.
"Oh, well----" he said again. She knew he was going, and wished more
than ever to find the book.
"It will be for next time," he added; and picking up the volume he had
laid on the desk he handed it to her. "By the way, a little air and sun
would do this good; it's rather valuable."
He gave her a nod and smile, and passed out.

II
The hours of the Hatchard Memorial librarian were from three to five;
and Charity Royall's sense of duty usually kept her at her desk until
nearly half-past four.
But she had never perceived that any practical advantage thereby
accrued either to North Dormer or to herself; and she had no scruple in
decreeing, when it suited her, that the library should close an hour
earlier. A few minutes after Mr. Harney's departure she formed this
decision, put away her lace, fastened the shutters, and turned the key in
the door of the temple of knowledge.
The street upon which she emerged was still empty: and after glancing
up and down it she began to walk toward her house. But instead of
entering she passed on, turned into a field-path and mounted to a

pasture on the hillside. She let down the bars of the gate, followed a
trail along the crumbling wall of the pasture, and walked on till she
reached a knoll where a clump of larches shook out their fresh tassels to
the wind. There she lay down on the slope, tossed off her hat and hid
her face in the grass.
She was blind and insensible to many things, and dimly knew it; but to
all that was light and air, perfume and colour, every drop of blood in
her responded. She loved the roughness of the dry mountain grass
under her palms, the smell of the thyme into which she crushed her face,
the fingering of the wind in her hair and through her cotton blouse, and
the creak of the larches as they swayed to it.
She often climbed up the hill and lay there alone for the mere pleasure
of feeling the wind and of rubbing her cheeks in the grass. Generally at
such times she did not think of anything, but lay immersed in an
inarticulate well-being. Today the sense of well-being was intensified
by her joy at escaping from the library. She liked well enough to have a
friend drop in and talk to her when she was on duty, but she hated to be
bothered about books. How could she remember where they were,
when they were so seldom asked for? Orma Fry occasionally took out a
novel, and her brother Ben was fond of what he called "jography," and
of books relating to trade and bookkeeping; but no one else asked for
anything except, at intervals, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," or "Opening of a
Chestnut Burr," or Longfellow. She had these under her hand, and
could have found them in the dark; but unexpected demands came so
rarely that they exasperated her like an