She smiled a faintly fleeting smile. "Thank you—but I reckon not."
"Miss Cassandra, when you know I am at your service, and will do anything you ask of me, why do you hold something back from me? I can understand, and I may have ways—"
"It's just that, suh. Even if I could tell you, I don't guess you could understand. Even if I went yonder on the mountain and cried to heaven to set me free, I'd have to bide here and do the work that is mine to do, as mother has done hers, and her mother before her."
"But they did it contentedly and happily—because they wished it. Your mother married your father because she loved him, and was glad—"
"Yes, I reckon she did—but he was different. She could do it for him. He lived alone—alone. Mother knew he did—she could understand. It was like he had a room to himself high up on the mountain, where she never could climb, nor open the door."
David leaned toward her. "What do you see when you look off at the mountain like that?"
"It's like I could see him. He would take his little books up there and walk the high path. I never have showed you his path. It was his, and he would walk in it, up and down, up and down, and read words I couldn't understand, reading like he was singing. Sometimes I would climb up to him, and he'd take me