The air had a
tang of the mountains. Everywhere were signs of spring, of new vigor and
fresh life. But the voices at each station sounded drowsier than at the
last, the eyes appeared more stolid, and to Roger it felt like a journey
far back into old ways of living, old beliefs and old ideals. He had always
had this feeling, and always he had relished it, this dive into his
boyhood. But it was different to-day, for this was more than a journey, it
was a migration, too. Close about him in the car were Edith and her
children, bound for a new home up there in the very heart and stronghold of
all old things in America.
Old things dear to Edith's heart. As she sat by the window staring out, he
watched her shapely little head; he noted the hardening lines on her
forehead and the gray which had come in her hair. It had been no easy move
for her, this, she'd shown pluck to take it so quietly. He saw her smile a
little, then frown and go on with her thinking. What was she thinking
about, he wondered--all she had left behind in New York, or the rest of her
life which lay ahead? She had always longed for things simple and old.
Well, she would have them now with a vengeance, summer and winter, the year
'round, in the battered frame house on the mountain side, the birthplace of
her family. A recollection came to him of a summer's dusk two years ago
and a woman with a lawn mower cutting the grass on the family graves.
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