She looked at her mother with a shade of trouble on her frank face. “For two years,” she added, “I’ve been turning the other cheek to my enemies. I haven’t passed that stage, yet. I’m still patient—but I feel stirrings.” “God forbid!” said the older woman solemnly, “it sounds like feud!” “Will be,” returned the girl shortly, “though I pray against it night and day.” The boy Bud came up from the stable along the path, and Nance stood watching him. There was but one thing in Nameless Valley that could harden her sweet mouth, could break up the habitual calm of her eyes. This was her brother, Bud. When she regarded him, as she did now, there was always a flash of flame in her face, a wimple of anguish passing on her features, an explosion, as it were, of some deep and surging passion, covered in; hidden, like molten lava in some half-dead crater, its dull surface cracking here and there with seams of awful light which drew together swiftly. Now for the moment the little play went on in her face. Then she smiled, for he was near. “Hello, Kid,” she said, “how’s all?” The boy smiled back and he was like her as two peas are like each other—the same golden skin, the same mouth, the same blue eyes crinkling at the corners. But there the likeness ended, for where Nance was a delight to the eye in her physical perfection, the boy hung lopsided, his left shoulder drooping, his left leg grotesquely bandied. But the joy of life was in him as it was in Nance, despite his misfortune. “Whew!” he said, “it’s gettin’ warm a-ready. Pretty near melted working in th’ garden today. Got three beds ready. Earth works up fine as sand.” “So it does in the field,” said Nance as she followed the mother into the cabin, “it’s like mould and ashes and all the good things of the land worked in together. It smells as fresh as they say the sea winds smell. Each time I work it, it seems wilder and sweeter—old lady earth sending out her alluring promise.” “Land sakes, girl,” said Mrs. Allison, “where do you get such fancies!” “Where do you suppose?” said Nance, “out of the earth herself. She tells me a-many things here on Nameless—such as the value of patience, an’ how to be strong in adversity. I’ve never had the schools, not since those long-back days in Missouri, but I’ve got my Bible and I’ve got the land. And I’ve got the sky and the hills and the river, too. If a body can’t learn from them he’s poor stuff inside. Mighty poor.” She tidied her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the kitchen wall, a small matter of passing her hands over the shining mass, for the braids were smooth, almost as they had been when she pinned them there before sun-up, and rolling down her sleeves, sat down to the table where a simple meal was steaming. She bowed her head and Mrs. Allison, her lean face gaunt with shadows of fear and apprehension, folded her hard hands and asked the customary blessing of that humble house.