" The fact seemed to call forth his neighbors'
admiration, just as the tale that he had been "deserted" called forth
their pity. Lisbeth, they averred, who had stuck to him, was "a hard
piece to get close to."
She was standing at the bottom of the hill where the creek ran between
the deserted mill and the new shack; and, as I came down the hill, I
felt a sharp twinge of pain at the contrast of the fragile line of her
profile against the coarse, dark sweater, at the slender grace of her
body against that dead, barn-sprinkled background. I could observe her
easily without her knowledge, for she was looking up, as we so often
used to at twilight, to the old plank high above the sagging mill, where
the turkeys fly to roost towards evening, so awkwardly and comically,
with a great breathless whirring of wings. I saw her lift her arms to
them with a swift, urging gesture, as though to steady their ungainly
flight, and I could not be certain that she was not talking to them.
Again a pang for the contracting loneliness of those bitter winters that
she had lived through and must still live through, stabbed me.
She turned with a low cry and a momentary flush of gladness. But I
noticed, as I questioned her as an old friend might, that the flush
melted into a level pallor, and her eyes, deeper and more unquiet than I
had remembered them, either wandered up the road or reverted to the last
of the turkeys soaring heavily to rest.
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