Dull Roots Stirring

Although Sarah Anne certainly was, as any number of her neighbors might have said, "purdy bright," she bore the burden shared by many whose education has not been of the formal sort-a deficient accent.

This circumstance brought her into association with the new schoolmaster, who had ridden into town with his saddlebags flopping half-empty against his horse's flanks.

This town, bearing the name of Altus Argent, lay in the valley between two mountain ridges. Halfway up the western slope sat the few houses of men who had managed to strike it big in the silver mines to the north.

A stream ran through that valley, and on either side of it were scattered the homes of doctor and lawyer, banker and grocer, postmaster and mortician, along with many others hoping that they, too, might, in time, move up the slope.

Will Sarah Anne, now separated from all this at the Lodge, hedged about by the familiar presences of Rafe and Norah and her nearly-brother Tob, by Old Herman and Buster and the other miners, to say nothing of Tob's dog, Dogg-descend into the milieu of this little town, with its Burgoo and Marching Society, the monthly meetings of the Longfellow Fellowship, the Spring Production of the Shakespeare Society presented at the Opera House, the Halloween Spell-Down at Brother Barney's church?

And if she does, what effect will it have on her-and she on it?