The material joys of life
might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great
universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the
day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged
along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and
owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was
better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer
than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the
stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier
still.
"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs
beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her.
"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn
and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her.
"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and
walked on together through the shade.
The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of
the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him;
then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment,
with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a
palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for
a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel.
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