David did not look out over the wide, pure expanse upon which a few flakes were still falling and beyond which the sun would soon sink gorgeously, nor did he see the purple shadows under the pine trees, nor observe the glancing motions of a squirrel, watching him from a bough near by. He determined, desperately, firmly, that he would repent no more; he would now return to his evil ways and get from them what satisfaction he could.
He crept on hands and knees into the little cave and felt round under a mass of dried leaves until his hands encountered the instruments of his evil practices. Then David drew them forth, a stubby pipe, which he had smoked once and which had made him deathly ill, and a pack of cards, about whose mysterious and delightful use he knew nothing. He sat with them in his hands on the sloping rock, wishing, poor little David, that he knew how to be wickeder than he was!
Having fed his stock, John Hartman tramped for a little while round his fields in the snow, then he returned to the kitchen and sat down by the window with a newspaper. Cassie lay asleep on the settle. Custom forbade her working on Christmas Day, and she never read, even the almanac. At her, her husband looked once or twice inscrutably, then he laid his head on the back of his tall chair and slept also. It was a scene at which Katy Gaumer would have pointed as proof of the unutterable stupidity of Millerstown.
When her husband slept, Cassie opened her eyes and looked at him with as steady a gaze as that which he had bent upon her. Her mouth set itself in a firm, straight line, her eyes deepened and darkened, her hands, folded upon her breast, grasped her flesh. Surely between these two was some great barrier of offense, given or suffered, of strange, wounded pride, or insufferable humiliation! Presently Cassie's lids fell; she turned her cheek against the hard back of the old settle and so fell asleep also.
John Hartman owned four farms and a great stretch of woodland and a granite quarry on the far side of the mountain and two farms and two peach orchards and an apple orchard on this. A generation ago a large deposit of fine iron ore had been discovered upon a tract of land owned by his father. The deposit was not confined to his fields, but extended to the lands of his neighbors. But while they sold ore and spent their money, John Hartman's father, as shrewd a business man as his son, sold and saved, and laid the foundation of his fortune. In a few years the discovery of richer, more easily mined deposits in the West and the cheap importation of foreign ores made the Millerstown ore for the time not worth the mining. Hartman the elder then covered his mine breaches and planted timber, and the growth set above the treasure underground was now thick and valuable. John Hartman was also a director in a county bank; he owned the finest, largest house in Millerstown; he had a handsome and a capable wife, and a son who was strong in body and who had a good mind. Apparently his position in life was secure, his comfort certain.