As the days passed Hare learned many other things. For a while illness
confined him to his bed on the porch. At night he lay listening to the
roar of the river, and watching the stars. Twice he heard a distant
crash and rumble, heavy as thunder, and he knew that somewhere along the
cliffs avalanches were slipping. By day he watched the cotton snow down
upon him, and listened to the many birds, and waited for the merry show
at recess-time. After a short time the children grew less shy and came
readily to him. They were the most wholesome children he had ever
known. Hare wondered about it, and decided it was not so much Mormon
teaching as isolation from the world. These children had never been out
of their cliff-walled home, and civilization was for them as if it were
not. He told them stories, and after school hours they would race to him
and climb on his bed, and beg for more.
He exhausted his supply of fairy-stories and animal stories; and had
begun to tell about the places and cities which he had visited when the
eager-eyed children were peremptorily called within by Mother Mary. This
pained him and he was at a loss to understand it.
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