The boys, with a growing fear in their eyes, as at sight of something inexplicable and uncanny, were sidling away; and in a moment they were hurrying down the hill, not, however, without a backward glance or two, of something very like terror.
David, left alone, went on his way with troubled eyes and a thoughtful frown.
David often wore, during those first few days at the Holly farmhouse, a thoughtful face and a troubled frown.

There were so many, many things that were different from his mountain home.

Over and over, as those first long days passed, he read his letter until he knew it by heart--and he had need to.

Was he not already surrounded by things and people that were strange to him?
And they were so very strange--these people! There were the boys and men who rose at dawn--yet never paused to watch the sun flood the world with light; who stayed in the fields all day--yet never raised their eyes to the big fleecy clouds overhead; who knew birds only as thieves after fruit and grain, and squirrels and rabbits only as creatures to be trapped or shot.

The women--they were even more incomprehensible.
They spent the long hours behind screened doors and windows, washing the same dishes and sweeping the same floors day after day.