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Show page 79 her stockings and she sometimes extended her legs to the fire as a man x^ould do to rub the heat into them, and her beauty and her morning freshness flitted across his consciousness still lost and struggling, unrecognizable and unknown. Al would begin to mix the batter for the pancakes and lay out the thick slabby cuts of red steak and listen for the coming of the men. But Flora was of the land's splendor and of the land's wildness and strength. There was a playfulness toward the boy. They would frolic in snowfights and laugh and shout with joy. The companionship of the youth and the young woman was part of the purity of the northern air, a part of the majesty of the mountains, a part of the greatness of life there. And the days passed. The cold retreated and the juices of nature began their seasonal struggles. It was the time of the river's breaking, the time of the ice floating. It was the time of freshets, the time of ground-steam. It was the time of new groxtfth. So with the youth. An unexplainable restlessness came upon him. He longed for the outside, the hills, the cut of the xvind, the smell of sagegrass. The kitchen and Flora were not of his world. Fritz noticed. Jim noticed. Their lives were lives of cattle and living things. And wild creatures were theirs to guide and softly manage. They knew the spirit of the colt, the spirit of the eaglet, the spirit of the young trout. They knew |