in.

Blossom Fulkerson knew none of these things at noon of the day
following the fight at the mill when, in the road, she encountered Lone
Stacy making his way back to his house for his midday dinner, but as
the old man stopped and nodded she read trouble in his eyes.

"Air ye worrited about somethin', Mr. Stacy?" she demanded, and for a
little space the man stood hesitantly silent.

At last he hazarded, "Little gal, thar's a thing I'd like ter name ter
ye. I reckon if anybody kin holp me hit mout be you."

The girl's eyes lighted with an instinctive sympathy--then shadowed
with a premonition of what was coming.

"Is hit--about--Turner?"

The father nodded his head gravely. His eyes wore the harassed disquiet
of a problem for which he knew no solution.

"Does ye mean thet he's--he's----" She broke off abruptly and Lone
Stacy answered her with unrelieved bluntness.

"He's a-layin' up thar drunk ergin, an' he's got a gash on one shoulder
thet's powder burned. I reckon he's been engagin' in some manner of
ruction."

For a moment the girl did not speak, but her cheeks paled and tears
swam abruptly in her eyes. She raised one hand and brushed them
fiercely away.

She had awakened this morning with a new and unaccountable happiness in
her heart. In all the lilt and sparkle of the world and all the
tunefulness of the young summer there had seemed a direct message to
herself. In her memory she had been hearing afresh the crude but
impassioned eloquence with which the boy had talked to her yesterday.
Now he lay up there at the distillery in the heavy sleep of the
drunkard.

"Ther boy's all I've got," announced Lone Stacy with an unaccustomed
break in his voice. "I reckon mebby ef I hadn't been so harsh I mout
hev more influence with him." Then he turned abruptly on his heel and
trudged on.

Blossom Fulkerson slipped into the woods and came to a sun-flecked
amphitheater of rock and rhododendron where the ferns grew lush and
tall, by the sparkle of water. There she sank down and covered her face
with her hands. Her sobs shook her for a while, and then washing the
tears away, she knelt and prayed with a passionate simplicity.

Sometimes she lifted a pale face and her lips twisted themselves
pathetically in the earnestness of her prayer.

The Almighty to Whom she made her plea, and Who knew everything, must
know, even as she knew, that Turner Stacy was not like those rowdy
youths who habitually disgraced the hill