him questions about his school-life in the mountains, to tell him of her own in the Blue-grass—­tried to talk about the opening of college next day, but he sat silent and sullen, and so, puzzled and full of resentment, she quietly withdrew.  After he was through, he heard her cleaning the dishes and putting them away, and he saw her that night no more.  Next morning, without a word to her or to his mother, he went out to the barn where Steve was feeding.

“If you’ll bring my things on in the buggy, I reckon I’ll just be goin’ on.”

“Why, we can all three git in the buggy.”

Jason shook his head.

“I hain’t goin’ to be late.”

Steve laughed.

“Well, you’ll shore be on time if you start now.  Why, Mavis says—­ "

But Jason had started swiftly on, and Steve, puzzled, did not try to stop him.  Mavis came out on the porch, and he pointed out the boy’s figure going through the dim fields.  “Jason’s gone on,” he said, “afeerd he’ll be late.  That boy’s plum’ quar.”

Jason was making a bee-line for more than the curve of the pike, for more than the college—­he was making it now for everything in his life that was ahead of him, and he meant now to travel it without help or hindrance, unswervingly and alone.  With St. Hilda, each day had started for him at dawn, and whether it started that early at the college in town he did not ask himself or anybody else.  He would wait now for nothing—­nobody.  The time had come to start, so he had started on his own new way, stout in body, heart, and soul, and that was all.

Soft mists of flame were shooting up the eastern horizon, soft dew-born mists were rising from little hollows and trailing through the low trees.  There had been a withering drought lately, but the merciful rain had come, the parched earth had drunk deep, and now under its mantle of rich green it seemed to be heaving forth one vast long sigh of happy content.  The corn was long ready for the knife, green sprouts of winter wheat were feathering their way above the rich brown soil, and the cut upturned tobacco stalks, but dimly seen through the mists, looked like little hunchbacked witches poised on broomsticks, and ready for flight at dawn.  Vast deviltry those witches had done, for every cut field, every poor field, recovering from the drastic visit of years before was rough, weedy, shaggy, unkempt, and worn.  The very face of the land showed decadence, and, in the wake of the witches, white top, dockweed, ragweed, cockle burr, and sweet fern had up-leaped like some joyous swarm of criminals unleashed from the hand of the law, while the beautiful pastures and grassy woodlands, their dignity outraged, were stretched here and there between them, helpless, but breathing in the very mists their scorn.