ere not. Peace overcame Mart and he slept deeply,
but not I. The hired man began to show symptoms. He would roll and
groan, dreaming of feuds, _quorum pars magna fuit_, it seemed, and of
religious conversion, in which he feared he was not so great. Twice he
said aloud:

"An' I tell you thar wouldn't a one of 'em have said a word if I'd been
killed stone-dead." Twice he said it almost weepingly, and now and then
he would groan appealingly:

"O Lawd, have mercy on my pore soul!"

Fortunately those two tired girls slept--I could hear their
breathing--but sleep there was little for me. Once the troubled soul
with the hoe got up and stumbled out to the water-bucket on the porch to
soothe the fever or whatever it was that was burning him, and after that
he was quiet. I awoke before day. The dim light at the window showed an
empty bed--Buck and the hired man were gone. Mart was slipping out of
the side of my bed, but the girls still slept on. I watched Mart, for
I guessed I might now see what, perhaps, is the distinguishing trait of
American civilization down to its bed-rock, as you find it through the
West and in the Southern hills--a chivalrous respect for women. Mart
thought I was asleep. Over in the corner were two creatures the like of
which I supposed he had never seen and would not see, since he came in
too late the night before, and was going away too early now--and two
angels straight from heaven could not have stirred my curiosity any more
than they already must have stirred his. But not once did Mart turn his
eyes, much less his face, toward the corner where they were--not once,
for I watched him closely. And when he went out he sent his little
sister back for his shoes, which the night-walking hired man had
accidentally kicked toward the foot of the strangers' bed. In a minute I
was out after him, but he was gone. Behind me the two girls opened their
eyes on a room that was empty save for them. Then the Blight spoke (this
I was told later).

"Dear," she said, "have our room-mates gone?"

Breakfast at dawn. The mountain girls were ready to go to work. All
looked sorry to have us leave. They asked us to come back again, and
they meant it. We said we would like to come back--and we meant it--to
see them--the kind old mother, the pioneer-like old man, sturdy little
Buck, shy little Cindy, the elusive, hard-working, unconsciously shivery
Mart, and the two big sisters. As we started back up the river the
sisters st