Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him.
Bud could not remember afterwards that she had done anything
else; he seemed to have seen only her eyes, and into them and
beyond them to a soul that somehow made his heart tremble.
What she said, what he answered, was of no moment. He could
not have told afterwards what it was. He stooped and filled
his arms with wood, and walked ahead of her up the pathway to
the kitchen door, and stopped when she flitted past him to
show him where the wood-box stood. He was conscious then of
her slenderness and of the lightness of her steps. He dropped
the wood into the box behind the stove on which kettles were
steaming. There was the smell of chicken stewing, and the
odor of fresh-baked pies.
She smiled up at him and offered him a crisp, warn cookie
with sugared top, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same
tremor at his heart. He pulled himself together and smiled
back at her, thanked her and went out, stumbling a little on
the doorstep, the cookie untasted in his fingers.
He walked down to the corral and began fumbling at his pack,
his thoughts hushed before the revelation that had come to
him.
"Her hands--her poor, little, red hands!" he said in a
whisper as the memory of them came suddenly. But it was her
eyes that he was seeing with his mind; her eyes, and what lay
deep within.
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