Though she did not know it, a certain dream of Peter's had very nearly
come true. For here were the vast plains, unpeopled, pure, immutable in
their magnificent calm. At night the stars seemed to come down and hang
just over Helen May's head. There was the little cottage of which Peter
had dreamed--only Helen May called it a miserable little shack--hunched
against a hill; sometimes a light winked through the window at the stars;
sometimes Helen May was startled at the nearness and the shrill
insistence of the coyotes. Here as Peter had dreamed so longingly and so
hopelessly, were distance and quiet and calm. And here was Helen May
coming through the sunlight--Peter never dreamed how hot it would
be!--with her deep-gold hair tousled in the wind and with the little red
spots gone from her cheeks and with health in her eyes that were the
color of ripe chestnuts. When her skin had adjusted itself to the rigors
of the climate, she would no doubt have freckles on her nose, just as
Peter had dreamed she might have. And if she were walking, instead of
riding the gentle-eyed pony which Peter had pictured, that was not
Peter's fault, nor the fault of the dream.
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