year perhaps we will go down,—if there is any other way besides that road.”
Aunt Ri was deeply grieved. She could not understand Ramona's feeling. It rankled deep. “I allow I'd never hev bleeved it uv her, never,” she said. “I shan't never think she wuz quite right 'n her head, to do 't! I allow we shan't never set eyes on ter her, Jos. I've got jest thet feelin' abaout it. 'Pears like she'd gone klar out 'er this yer world inter anuther.”
The majestic bulwark of San Jacinto Mountain looms in the southern horizon of the San Bernardino valley. It was in full sight from the door of the little shanty in which Aunt Ri's carpet-loom stood. As she sat there hour after hour, sometimes seven hours to the day, working the heavy treadle, and slipping the shuttle back and forth, she gazed with tender yearnings at the solemn, shining summit. When sunset colors smote it, it glowed like fire; on cloudy days, it was lost in the clouds.
“'Pears like 'twas next door to heaven, up there, Jos,” Aunt Ri would say. “I can't tell yer the feelin' 't comes over me, to look up 't it, ever sence I knowed she wuz there. 'T shines enuf to put yer eyes aout, sometimes; I allow 'tain't so light's thet when you air into 't; 't can't be; ther couldn't nobody stan' it, ef 't wuz. I allow 't must be like bein' dead, Jos, don't yer think so, to be livin' thar? He sed ther couldn't nobody git to 'em. Nobody ever seed the place but hisself. He found it a huntin'. Thar's water thar, 'n' thet's abaout all thar is, fur's I cud make aout; I allow we shan't never see her agin.”
The horses and the wagon were indeed a godsend to Jos. It was the very thing he had been longing for; the only sort of work he was as yet strong enough to do, and there was plenty of it to be had in San Bernardino. But the purchase of a wagon suita-
