CHAPTER XXX

MARK SEES THE DAWN


That same Tuesday afternoon Mark sat in the doorway of the cowshed
looking at the road.

It was the first period of rest and ease he had had since his arrival. He
had found the household disorganized, his father hovering, frantic, round
the sick bed, and Sadie distractedly distributing her energies between
her mother's room and the kitchen. It was he who had driven over to
Stockton and brought back a nurse, insisted on the doctor staying in the
house and made him a shakedown in the parlor. When things began to look
better he had turned his hand to the farm work and labored through the
week's accumulation, while the old man sat beside his wife's pillow, his
chin sunk on his breast.

Today the tension had relaxed, for the doctor said Mother was going to
pull through. An hour ago he had packed his kit and driven off to his own
house up the valley, not to be back till tomorrow. It was very peaceful
in the yard, the warm, sleepy air full of the droning of insect life
which ran like a thin accompaniment under a low crooning of song from the
kitchen where Sadie was straightening up. On the front porch, the farmer,
his feet on the railing, his hat on his nose, was sunk in the depths of a
recuperating sleep.

Astride the milking stool Mark looked dreamily at the familiar prospect,
the black carpet of shade under the live oak, the bright bits of sky