human
Donelle, I thought——
gpt
Did I frighten you, Tom?
human
Well, you know there is always the bit of a coward in me. Why are you here?
gpt
I came to meet you, Tom.
human
Has anything gone wrong?
gpt
No, but I wanted you, Tom. There are so many things to talk about, wonderful things. I’ve gone to your cabin, Tom, and made it ready for you. Every day I’ve lighted a fire the nights are cold. I thought you might come at night.
human
You’re kind, was all he said as he looked at her. Then:
gpt
I never had a home until I got that cabin, Donelle. While I am away, I see the curtains you and Mam’selle made and the bedspread and all the rest. When I’ve been shivering in camp, I saw the fire on my own little hearth, and I was warm!
human
Tell me about your road,
gpt
Well, there’s going to be one! I meant to come back ten days ago, but something happened and I decided to start work this fall, not wait for spring, so I stayed on. There was sickness at a settlement back in the woods. Many people almost died, some of them did, because they couldn’t get a doctor and proper care. It’s criminal to put women and children in such a hole; there’s got to be a road connecting those places with—help! A man is a brute to take a woman with him under such conditions. What _he_ wants goes! He never thinks of _her_ part.
human
But, Tom, maybe she, the woman, wants to go.
gpt
He ought not to let her, he knows.
human
But if she just will go, what then, Tom?
gpt
It doesn’t make it right for him, he knows.
human
But it might be worse to stay back, Tom. A woman might choose to go.
gpt
But _she_ doesn’t know; _he_ does.
human
But she may want to know, and be willing to pay.
gpt
Donelle, you’re a crazy little know-nothing.
human
Always wanting to pay for what isn’t worth it.
gpt
You’re wrong, Tom. It is worth it.
human
What?
gpt
Why, the thing that makes a woman want to go into the woods with a man, even when there are no roads; the thing that makes her willing to pay before she knows.
human
I suppose it is—love, Tom.
gpt
It’s something worse, often!
human
Lately, Tom, Donelle came close to him and touched his arm as she walked beside him,
gpt
I’ve been thinking about such a lot of new things and love among them.
human
Love!
gpt
Yes, and I had no one to talk to. I couldn’t speak to Mamsey. Always I think of you, Tom, whenever thoughts come. You see everything, just as you see your roads in the deep woods. Are you tired, Tom?
human
No, Gavot got control of himself,
gpt
You see, and now they were going on again,
human
This tremendous truth fell from the girlish lips quite irrelevantly.
gpt
And then you just take and pay what you must, but often you have to pay more than you ought, because—well, because you are young when you bought——
human
I’ve been thinking of Mamsey,
gpt
You don’t have to pay for Mam’selle, he said in a whisper;
human
But I’ve got to pay for my father, Tom.
gpt
What do you mean?
human
Why, you see, lately I’ve known that I must be like my father more than like, like Mamsey. She learned and stayed and paid, he ran away. Oh, Tom, it’s good to be able to say this to you, out here under the trees, alone. It has been choking me for days and days. You see, Tom, a big feeling comes up in me that wants and wants. And, always, too, there is another feeling. I do not want to pay, as Mamsey did. It would be easier to run and hide! But, Tom, I’m not going to, I’m not! I’m going to pay for my father!
gpt
What ails you, Donelle? Has any one been talking?
human
No, it is only—thoughts that have been talking. I just cannot settle down by Mamsey, and know I’m to stay here without that running away feeling. Then I say: ’I don’t care, I want to go and I’ll go,’ and then—why, I cannot, Tom, for I know I must pay for my father.
gpt
Go where?
human
Go, Tom, where my fiddle would take me. Go where people do not know; go and learn things, and then if any one did find out—pay!