So she came forward, and I helped her over the back of
the seat to a place by my side. For the first time I could get a good
look at her undisturbed--if a bashful boy like me could be undisturbed
journeying over the open prairie with a girl by his side--a girl
altogether in his hands.
First I noticed that her hair, though dark brown, gave out gleams of
bright dark fire as the sun shone through it in certain ways. I kept
glancing at that shifting gleam whenever we turned the slow team so that
her hair caught the sun. I have seen the same flame in the mane of a
black horse bred from a sorrel dam or sire. As a stock breeder I have
learned that in such cases there is in the heredity the genetic unit of
red hair overlaid with black pigment. It is the same in people.
Virginia's father had red hair, and her sister Ann Gowdy had hair which
was a dark auburn. I was fascinated by that smoldering fire in the
girl's hair; and in looking at it I finally grew bolder, as I saw that
she did not seem to suspect my scrutiny, and I saw that her brows and
lashes were black, and her eyes very, very blue--not the buttermilk blue
of the Dutchman's eyes, like mine, with brows and lashes lighter than
the sallow Dutch skin, but deep larkspur blue, with a dark edging to the
pupil--eyes that sometimes, in a dim light, or when the pupils are
dilated, seem black to a person who does not look closely. Her skin,
too, showed her ruddy breed--for though it was tanned by her long
journey in the sun and wind, there glowed in it, even through her
paleness, a tinge of red blood--and her nose was freckled.
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