He boggled over some of the words,
but on the whole he read well, and his harsh voice dropped into a pleasant
sing-song.
By and by he noticed that his mother was asleep. He took the tin pannikin
and filled it with fresh water from the spring. Then he kissed the hand
which lay on the blanket, looked about guiltily to see if anyone had seen
him, for kisses were rare in that household and tiptoes out again.
The woman slept, but not wholly. The doorway, which was now filled with the
deeper gold of the westering sun, was still in her vision. It had grown to
a great square of light, and instead of being blocked in the foreground by
the forest it seemed to give on an infinite distance. She had a sense not
of looking out of a hut, but of looking from without into a great chamber.
Peace descended on her which she had never known before in her feverish
dreams, peace and a happy expectation.
She had not listened to Abe's reading, but some words of it had caught her
ear. The phrase "delectable mountains" for one.
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