{"id":"01KG6YH8FME5SN7TPAEHN2SDGQ","cid":"bafkreif7srrv5lkawdovidhksw5gjeehfofd3gnwknohkxp2oxjimprvo4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":549,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":456,"text":"and then rots. An old house. They went West, and are long dead, they\r\nsay, who built it. A mountain house. In winter no fox could den in it.\r\nThat chimney-place has been blocked up with snow, just like a hollow\r\nstump.”\r\n\r\n“Yours are strange fancies, Marianna.”\r\n\r\n“They but reflect the things.”\r\n\r\n“Then I should have said, ‘These are strange things,’ rather than,\r\n‘Yours are strange fancies.’”\r\n\r\n“As you will;” and took up her sewing.\r\n\r\nSomething in those quiet words, or in that quiet act, it made me mute\r\nagain; while, noting, through the fairy window, a broad shadow stealing\r\non, as cast by some gigantic condor, floating at brooding poise on\r\noutstretched wings, I marked how, by its deeper and inclusive dusk, it\r\nwiped away into itself all lesser shades of rock or fern.\r\n\r\n“You watch the cloud,” said Marianna.\r\n\r\n“No, a shadow; a cloud’s, no doubt—though that I cannot see. How did\r\nyou know it? Your eyes are on your work.”\r\n\r\n“It dusked my work. There, now the cloud is gone, Tray comes back.”\r\n\r\n“How?”\r\n\r\n“The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to change\r\nhis shape—returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don’t you see\r\nhim? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he looked\r\nbefore him.”\r\n\r\n“Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?”\r\n\r\n“By the window, crossing.”\r\n\r\n“You mean this shaggy shadow—the nigh one? And, yes, now that I mark\r\nit, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invading\r\nshadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it.”\r\n\r\n“For that, you must go without.”\r\n\r\n“One of those grassy rocks, no doubt.”\r\n\r\n“You see his head, his face?”\r\n\r\n“The shadow’s? You speak as if _you_ saw it, and all the time your eyes\r\nare on your work.”\r\n\r\n“Tray looks at you,” still without glancing up; “this is his hour; I\r\nsee him.”\r\n\r\n“Have you then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but clouds\r\nand, vapors pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speak\r\nof them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like a\r\nsecond sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where they\r\nare, though, as having mice-like feet, they creep about, and come and\r\ngo; that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who,\r\nthough out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces—is it\r\nso?”\r\n\r\n“That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used to\r\nsoothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was\r\ntaken from me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a\r\nbirch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw\r\nthe cross-pile out-doors—the buried root lies under it; but not the\r\nshadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere stir\r\nagain.”\r\n\r\nAnother cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, and\r\nblackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, deafness\r\nmight have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke.\r\n\r\n“Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys and\r\nbob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?”\r\n\r\n“Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe and\r\nfall—few, but me, the wiser.”\r\n\r\n“But yellow-birds showed me the way—part way, at least.”\r\n\r\n“And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountain-side, but\r\ndon’t make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living so\r\nlonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing—little, at least, but\r\nsound of thunder and the fall of trees—never reading, seldom speaking,\r\nyet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts—for so you\r\ncall them—this weariness and wakefulness together Brother, who stands\r\nand works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostly\r\nbut dull woman’s work—sitting, sitting, restless sitting.”\r\n\r\n“But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB7ZRMGN7B1MPH0Y1BQ2","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FSM3Y7H7MPKQWADRPB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FSA5HP1P0SFRQAZ82Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.572Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:02.141Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}