I had the feeling that the world was
left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's
jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a
familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of
heaven, all there was of it. I did not believe that my dead father and
mother were watching me from up there; they would still be looking for me
at the sheep-fold down by the creek, or along the white road that led to
the mountain pastures. I had left even their spirits behind me. The wagon
jolted on, carrying me I knew not whither. I don't think I was homesick.
If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter. Between that earth and
that sky I felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers that night:
here, I felt, what would be would be.
II
I DO not remember our arrival at my grandfather's farm sometime before
daybreak, after a drive of nearly twenty miles with heavy work-horses.
When I awoke, it was afternoon. I was lying in a little room, scarcely
larger than the bed that held me, and the window-shade at my head was
flapping softly in a warm wind. A tall woman, with wrinkled brown skin and
black hair, stood looking down at me; I knew that she must be my
grandmother. She had been crying, I could see, but when I opened my eyes
she smiled, peered at me anxiously, and sat down on the foot of my bed.
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