e Gap." Like little Buck, he, too,
stopped short. "He's a good man an' I'm a-goin' to help him."

Yes, he repeated, quite irrelevantly, it was hunting hogs all day with
nothing to eat and only mean whiskey to drink. Mart had not come in
yet--he was "workin' out" now.

"He's the best worker in these mountains," said the old woman; "Mart
works too hard."

The hired man appeared and joined us at the fire. Bedtime came, and I
whispered jokingly to the Blight:

"I believe I'll ask that good-looking one to 'set up' with me." "Settin'
up" is what courting is called in the hills. The couple sit up in front
of the fire after everybody else has gone to bed. The man puts his arm
around the girl's neck and whispers; then she puts her arm around his
neck and whispers--so that the rest may not hear. This I had related to
the Blight, and now she withered me.

"You just do, now!"

I turned to the girl in question, whose name was Mollie. "Buck told me
to ask you who Dave Branham was." Mollie wheeled, blushing and angry,
but Buck had darted cackling out the door. "Oh," I said, and I changed
the subject. "What time do you get up?"

"Oh, 'bout crack o' day." I was tired, and that was discouraging.

"Do you get up that early every morning?"

"No," was the quick answer; "a mornin' later."

A morning later, Mollie got up, each morning. The Blight laughed.

Pretty soon the two girls were taken into the next room, which was a
long one, with one bed in one dark corner, one in the other, and a third
bed in the middle. The feminine members of the family all followed them
out on the porch and watched them brush their teeth, for they had never
seen tooth-brushes before. They watched them prepare for bed--and I
could hear much giggling and comment and many questions, all of which
culminated, by and by, in a chorus of shrieking laughter. That climax,
as I learned next morning, was over the Blight's hot-water bag. Never
had their eyes rested on an article of more wonder and humor than that
water bag.

By and by, the feminine members came back and we sat around the fire.
Still Mart did not appear, though somebody stepped into the kitchen, and
from the warning glance that Mollie gave Buck when she left the room I
guessed that the newcomer was her lover Dave. Pretty soon the old man
yawned.

"Well, mammy, I reckon this stranger's about ready to lay down, if
you've got a place fer him."

"Git a light, Buck," said the old woman. Buck got a