Rose's pink calico seemed to brush him as he walked in the path that was wide
enough only for one. His solitude was peopled again when he fed the cattle,
for Rose's face smiled at him from the haymow; and when he strained the milk,
Rose held the pans.
His nightly tasks over, he went out and took his favorite seat under the apple
tree. All was still, save for the crickets' ceaseless chirp, the soft thud of
an August sweeting dropping in the grass, and the swish-swash of the water
against his boat, tethered in the Willow Cove.
He remembered when he first saw Rose, for that must have been when he began to
love her, though he was only fourteen and quite unconscious that the first
seed had been dropped in the rich soil of his boyish heart.
He was seated on the kerosene barrel in the Edgewood post-office, which was
also the general country store, where newspapers, letters, molasses, nails,
salt codfish, hairpins, sugar, liver pills, canned goods, beans, and ginghams
dwelt in genial proximity. When she entered, just a little pink-and-white slip
of a thing with a tin pail in her hand and a sunbonnet falling off her wavy
hair, Stephen suddenly stopped swinging his feet.
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