Farther down the valley, near the place where the white pike twisted
itself between two of the rampart hills to escape into the great valley
of the Tennessee, the split-shingled roof under which Thomas Jefferson
had eaten and slept since the earliest beginning of memories became also
a part of the high-mountain harmony; and the ragged, red iron-ore beds
on the slope above the furnace were softened into a blur of joyous
color.

The iron-furnace, with its alternating smoke puff and dull red flare,
struck the one jarring note in a symphony blown otherwise on great
nature's organ-pipes; but to Thomas Jefferson the furnace was as much a
part of the immutable scheme as the hills or the forests or the creek
which furnished the motive power for its air-blast. More, it stood for
him as the summary of the world's industry, as the white pike was the
world's great highway, and Major Dabney its chief citizen.

He was knocking his bare heels together and thinking idly of Major
Dabney and certain disquieting rumors lately come to Paradise, when the
tinkling drip of the spring into the pool at the foot of his perch was
interrupted by a sudden splash.

By shifting a little to the right he could see the spring. A girl of
about his own age, barefooted, and with only her tangled mat of dark
hair for a head covering, was filling her bucket in the pool. He broke a
dry twig from the nearest cedar and dropped it on her.

"You better quit that, Tom-Jeff Gordon. I taken sight o' you up there,"
said the girl, ignoring him otherwise.