第53章

It was clear and she ate it as she had eaten the first.She laid aside the third, the fourth, and the fifth.The sixth seemed all right--but was not.Fortunately she had not been certain enough to feel justified in putting the whole egg into her mouth before tasting it.The taste, however, was enough to make her reflect that perhaps on the whole two eggs were sufficient for breakfast, especially as there would be at least dinner and supper before she could go further.As she did not wish to risk another descent, she continued to sort out the eggs.She found four that were, or seemed to be, all right.The thirteen that looked doubtful or worse when tested by the light she restored with the greatest care.It was an interesting illustration of the rare quality of consideration which at that period of her life dominated her character.

She put the four eggs in the bosom of her blouse and climbed up to her eyrie.All at once she felt the delicious languor of body and mind which is Nature's forewarning that she is about to put us to sleep, whether we will or no.She lost all anxiety about safety, looked hastily around for a bed.She found just the place in a corner of the little tableland where the grass grew tall and thick.She took from her bosom the four eggs--her dinner and supper--and put them between the roots of a tree with a cover of broad leaves over them to keep them cool.She pulled grass to make a pillow, took off her collar and laid herself down to sleep.And that day's sun did not shine upon a prettier sight than this soundly and sweetly sleeping girl, with her oval face suffused by a gentle flush, with her rounded young shoulders just moving the bosom of her gray silk blouse, with her slim, graceful legs curled up to the edge of her carefully smoothed blue serge skirt.You would have said never a care, much less a sorrow, had shadowed her dawning life.And that is what it means to be young--and free from the curse of self-pity, and ignorant of life's saddest truth, that future and past are not two contrasts; one is surely bright and the other is sober, but they are parts of a continuous fabric woven of the same threads and into the same patterns from beginning to end.

When she awoke, beautifully rested, her eyes clear and soft, the shadows which had been long toward the southwest were long, though not so long, toward the southeast.She sat up and smiled;it was so fine to be free! And her woes had not in the least shaken that serene optimism which is youth's most delightful if most dangerous possession.She crawled through the grass to the edge of the rock and looked out through the screening leaves of the dense undergrowth.There was no smoke from the chimney of the house.The woman, in a blue calico, was sitting on the back doorstep knitting.Farther away, in fields here and there, a few men--not a dozen in all--were at work.From a barnyard at the far edge of the western horizon came the faint sound of a steam thresher, and she thought she could see the men at work around it, but this might have been illusion.It was a serene and lovely panorama of summer and country.Last of all her eyes sought the glimpse of distant river.

She ate two of her four eggs, put on the underclothes which were now thoroughly sun-dried, shook out and rebraided her hair.Then she cast about for some way to pass the time.