herself answering almost before she was aware
of it.

"I--I hope to," she said simply.

Then she suddenly realized her own smallness. She felt almost
overpowered with the bigness of what the man's words had shown her. It
was wonderful to her the thought of this--this "scallawag." The word
flashed through her mind, and with it came an even fuller realization
of Mrs. Ransford's stupidity. The man's thought was the poet's insight
into Nature's wonderlands. He was speaking of that great mountain
world as though it were a religion to him, as if it represented some
treasured poetic ideal, or some lifelong, priceless friendship.

She saw his answering nod of sympathy, and sighed her relief. Just for
one moment she had been afraid. She had been afraid of some sign of
pity, even contempt. She felt her own weakness without that. Now she
was glad, and went on with more confidence.

"I'm going to start from the very beginning," she said, with something
akin to enthusiasm. "I'm going to start here--right here, on my very
own farm. Surely the rudiments must lie here--the rudiments that must
be mastered before the greater task of reading that story is begun."
She turned toward the blue hills, where the summer clouds were wrapped
about the glistening snowcaps. "Yes," she cried, clasping her hands
enthusiastically, "I want to learn it all--all." Suddenly she turned
back and looked at him with a wonderful, smiling simplicity. "Will you
help me?" she said eagerly. "Perhaps--in odd moments? Will you help me
with those--lessons?"

Buck's breath came quickly, and his simple heart was set thumping in
his bosom. But his face was serious, and his eyes quite calm as he
nodded.

"It'll be dead easy for you to learn," he said, a new deep note
sounding in his voice. "You'll learn anything I know, an' much more,
in no time. You can't help but learn. You'll be quicker to understand,
quicker to feel all those things. Y' see I've got no sort of
cleverness--nor nuthin'. I jest look around an' see things--an' then,
then I think I know." He laughed quietly at his own conceit. "Oh, yes!
sometimes I guess I know it all. An' then I get sorry for folks that
don't, an' I jest wonder how it comes everybody don't understand--same
as me. Then something happens."

"Yes, yes."

Joan was so eager she felt she could not wait for the pause that
followed. Buck laughed.

"Something happens, same as it did yesterday," he went on. "Oh, it's
big--it sure is!"