For long months he did not meet her, until one day he saw her deep
eyes fixed longingly upon him from a thicket in the swamp. He went and
greeted her. But she said no word, sitting nested among the greenwood
with passionate, proud silence, until he had sued long for peace; then
in sudden new friendship she had taken his hand and led him through the
swamp, showing him all the beauty of her swamp-world--great shadowy oaks
and limpid pools, lone, naked trees and sweet flowers; the whispering
and flitting of wild things, and the winging of furtive birds. She had
dropped the impish mischief of her way, and up from beneath it rose a
wistful, visionary tenderness; a mighty half-confessed, half-concealed,
striving for unknown things. He seemed to have found a new friend.
And today, after he had taken Miss Taylor home and supped, he came out
in the twilight under the new moon and whistled the tremulous note that
always brought her.
"Why did you speak so to Miss Taylor?" he asked, reproachfully. She
considered the matter a moment.
"You don't understand," she said. "You can't never understand. I can see
right through people. You can't. You never had a witch for a mammy--did
you?"
"No."
"Well, then, you see I have to take care of you and see things for you."
"Zora," he said thoughtfully, "you must learn to read.
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