DEEP CHANNEL DEEP CHANNEL BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE [Illustration] THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON COPYRIGHT 1923 BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEEP CHANNEL I Where shall we pick up the thread of Julie Rose’s life? It runs, a hidden strand, back and back into the past, crossed and recrossed by the threads of other lives,--all weaving a pattern of humanity on an unseen loom,--deflected sometimes by the pull of natures stronger than her own, widened here and narrowed there by circumstance, winding itself for the most part along the muddy streets of Hart’s Run, to the shops on errands for her mother, to the schoolhouse, and on Sundays to the Methodist church; sometimes, more rarely, running out of the village by the main street, which so quickly turns itself into a rutty highway, up the sides of the surrounding mountains on excursions for chestnuts in the autumn, or for bloodroot and anemone blossoms in the spring. Following the thread, one may see Julie Rose as a little girl--such a meagre, anxious, and correct little girl!--out on the streets in hood and little shawl in winter or in a checked wash-dress in summer, weaving her pattern of life through the village. An uncertain pattern, deflected as it is by the constant necessity for sudden crossings of the street to avoid encounters which frighten her, yet at the same time to give the impression that she changed her course for other reasons. Here she crosses, one might suppose, to speak to old Mrs. Brewster; in reality it is to escape a group of rough boys who would be sure to taunt her, or even give her hair a jerk, did she dare to pass them. There she recrosses, apparently to peep at a bed of zinnias but really to avoid a cow, which, blocking the sidewalk, might swoop its horns at her were she to face it. Always there is the fear and always the compulsion of concealment, for worse even than being afraid is to have one’s fear uncovered by the laughter of people. But though a little nervous pulse flutters in her neck, and her eyes darken constantly with apprehension, yet her whole face can light up amazingly whenever life is gracious to her: when some one gives her a red apple, for instance, or when her teacher is kind.