In the window was a table, also made of boards, with an
earthenware jar holding a big bunch of wild asters, two canvas chairs
stood near by, and in one corner was a mattress with a Mexican blanket
over it.
The room was empty, and leaning her bicycle against the house Charity
clambered up the slope and sat down on a rock under an old apple-tree.
The air was perfectly still, and from where she sat she would be able to
hear the tinkle of a bicycle-bell a long way down the road....
She was always glad when she got to the little house before Harney. She
liked to have time to take in every detail of its secret sweetness--the
shadows of the apple-trees swaying on the grass, the old walnuts
rounding their domes below the road, the meadows sloping westward in the
afternoon light--before his first kiss blotted it all out. Everything
unrelated to the hours spent in that tranquil place was as faint as the
remembrance of a dream. The only reality was the wondrous unfolding
of her new self, the reaching out to the light of all her contracted
tendrils.
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