er the father went in.
"Thar hain't no place fer an ign'rant old feller like me, out hyar
amongst ther young an' wise," he chuckled as he left them. "I reckon ye
aims ter talk algebry an' sich-like."

The mountains were great upward sweeps of velvet darkness. Down in the
slopes, where the moonlight fell, was a bath of silver and shadows, not
dead and inky but blue and living, but Happy Spradling, keyed to the
emotional influences of that June evening, found herself labouring with
a distrait and unresponsive visitor, who made an early excuse for
departure.

CHAPTER XVII

Beyond the goal of getting through college in three years, Boone had
planned his future but vaguely. He might seek election to the
Legislature, when he came of qualifying age, and strive upwards from
that beginning toward Congress and the larger rewards of a political
life. For such a career the law was a necessary preparation, so while he
was still in college he began its reading.

Whenever he went home from the university he saw Happy, and in the tacit
fashion of simple souls their neighbourhood fell to speaking of "Boone
and Happy," as though the linking of their names was natural and
logical, and in local gossip it was almost as though they were
betrothed.

Happy had other suitors, more than a few of them indeed, drawn to the
Spradling house by her beauty. Along those neighbourhood creeks, from
the trickles where they "headed up" to the mouths where they emptied,
there were few girls who could hope to compete with her loveliness of
sloe-eyes, dusky hair and slender grace of body. But the old wives shook
their heads, saying, "Happy Spradling wouldn't hurt a fly--but jest ther
same she's breakin' hearts right an' left because she's mortgaged ter
Boone Wellver--an' she's jest a'waitin' fer him."

Old Cyrus already looked on him as a son--and Boone spoke as little of
Anne Masters as he would have spoken of the things sealed in Masonic
secrecy.

Happy's school was one which arranged its terms and vacations in
accordance with local exigencies. Crop planting and gathering had the
right of way over text-books, and so it happened that when Anne was at
Marlin Town, Happy was usually at school--and their ways did not cross.

Yet each summer, too, as a man may go from the provinces to court and
yet not delude himself with the hallucination that he is a courtier,
Boone went over to Marlin Town. For every summer Anne Masters came for a
few weeks