their heads off," retorted Ledlie; "then they'll git married an' go off some'rs. There ain't nothin' to gals nohow. You oughtn't to have went an' done it."
There seemed to be no further defence for Greensleeve. Ledlie continued to chew a sprig of something green and tender, revolving it and rolling it from one side of his small, thin-lipped mouth to the other. His thin little partner brooded in the sunshine. Once he glanced up at the sign which swung in front of the road-house: "Hotel Greensleeve: Greensleeve and Ledlie, proprietors."
"Needs painting, Archie," he volunteered mildly.
"I dunno," said the other. "Since the gunnin' season closed there ain't been no business except them sports from New York. The bar done good; that's all."
"There were two commercial men Wednesday week."
"Yes, an' they found fault with their vittles. They can go to the other place next time," which was as near as Ledlie ever came to profanity.
After a silence Ledlie said: "Here come your kids, Pete. I guess I'll let 'em dig a little bait for me."
Down the road they came dancing, and across the causeway over Spring Pond—Jack, aged four, Doris, three, and Catharine, two; and they broke into a run when they caught sight of their father, travelling as fast as their fat little legs could carry them.
"Is there a new baby? Is there a new baby?" shouted Jack, while still at a distance.
"Is it a boy? I want another brother! Is it a boy?" shrilled Doris as she and baby Catharine came panting up with flushed and excited faces.
"It's a girl," said Greensleeve mildly. "You'd better go into the kitchen and wash your faces."
"A girl!" cried Jack contemptuously. "What did mamma do that for?"
"Oh, goodness!" pouted Doris, "I didn't want any more girls around. What are you going to name her, papa?"
"Athalie, I believe," he said absently.
"Athalie! What kind of name is that?" demanded Jack.
"I dunno. Your mamma wanted it in case the baby was a girl."
The children, breathing hard and rapidly, stood in a silent cluster looking up at their father. Ledlie yawned frightfully, and they all instantly turned their eyes on him to discover if possible the solitary tooth with which rumour credited him. They always gazed intently into his mouth when he yawned, which irritated him.
"Go on in and wash yourselves!" he said as soon as speech became possible. "Ain't you heard what your papa told you!"
They were not afraid of Mr. Ledlie; they merely found him unsympathetic, and therefore concerned themselves with him not at all.
Ignoring him, Jack said, addressing his father: "I nearly caught a snake up the road. Gee! But he was a dandy."
"He had stripes," said Doris solemnly.
"He wiggled," asserted little Catharine, and her eyes became very round.
"What kind was he, papa?" inquired Jack.
"Oh, just a snake," replied Greensleeve vaguely.
The eager faces of the children clouded with disappointment; dawning expectancy faded; it was the old, old tragedy of bread desired, of the stone offered.
"I liked that snake," muttered Jack. "I wanted to keep him for a pet. I wanted to know what kind he was. He seemed very friendly."
"Next time," suggested Ledlie, "you pet him on the head with a rock."
"What?"
"Snakes is no good. There's pizen into 'em. You kill every one you see an' don't ask questions."
In the boy's face intelligence faded. Impulse lay stunned after its headlong collision with apathy, and died out in the clutch of ignorance.
"Is that so, papa?" he asked, dully.
"Yes, I guess so," nodded Greensleeve. "Mr. Ledlie knows all about snakes and things."
"Go on in an' wash!" repeated Ledlie. "You don't git no supper if you ain't cleaned up for table. Your papa says so, don't you, Pete?"
Greensleeve usually said what anybody told him to say.
"Walk quietly," he added; "your poor mamma's asleep."
Reluctantly the children turned toward the house, gazing inquiringly up at the curtained window of their mother's room as they trooped toward the veranda.
Jack swung around on the lower step:
"Papa!" he shouted.
"Well?"
"I forget what her name is!"
"Athalie."
CHAPTER II
HER first memories were of blue skies, green trees, sunshine, and the odour of warm moist earth.
Always through life she retained this memory of her early consciousness—a tree in pink bloom; morning-glories covering a rotting board fence; deep, rich, sun-warmed soil into which her baby fingers burrowed.
A little later commenced her memory of her mother—a still, white-shawled figure sewing under a peach tree in pink bloom.
Vast were her mother's skirts, as Athalie remembered them—a wide white tent under which she could creep out of the sunlight and hide.
Always, too, her earliest memories were crowded with children, hosts of them in a kaleidoscopic whirl around her, and their voices seemed ever in her ears.
By the age of four she had gradually understood that this vaguely pictured host of children numbered only three, and that they were her brother and two sisters—very much grown up and desirable to play with. But at seven she began to be surprised that Doris and Catharine were no older and no bigger than they were, although Jack's twelve years still awed her.
It was about this time that the child began to be aware of a difference between herself and the other children. For a year or two it did not trouble her, nor even confuse her. She seemed to be aware of it, that was all.
When it first dawned on her that her mother was aware of it too, she could never quite remember. Once, very early in her career, her mother who had been sewing under the peach tree, dropped her work and looked down at her very steadily where she sat digging holes in the dirt.
And Athalie had a vague idea in after life that this was the beginning; because there had been a little boy sitting beside her all the while she was digging; and, somehow, she was aware that her mother could not see him.
She was not able to recollect whether her mother had spoken to her, or even whether she herself had conversed with the little boy. He never came again; of that she was positive.
When it was that her brother and sisters began to suspect her of being different she could not remember.
In the beginning she had not understood their half-incredulous curiosity concerning her; and, ardently communicative by nature, she was frank with them, confident and undisturbed, until their child-like and importunate aggressiveness, and the brutal multiplicity of their questions drove her to reticence and shyness.
For what seemed to amaze them or excite them to unbelief or to jeers seemed to her ordinary, unremarkable, and not worthy of any particular notice—not even of her own.
That she sometimes saw things "around corners," as Jack put it, had seemed natural enough to her. That, now and then, she seemed to perceive things which nobody else noticed never disturbed her even when she became aware that other people were unable to see them. To her it was as though her own eyesight were normal, and astigmatism the rule among other people.
But