er porch, Mrs. Barrows' belligerent black
curls fluttered like a war banner in the breeze.

"Course we women knowed you men tried to make this Miss Em'ly Dunham go,
and she wouldn't, but women ain't so easy turned from things they sets
out to do. So I told her we didn't want no Yankee school teacher in our
district, that we were talkin' things over and meant to get some one to
teach our little darkies ourselves. And that our intention in comin'
forth to see her had not been to say howdy, but good-bye."

Here the joy of battle, even though it had resulted in defeat, actually
spread a retrospective glow over the mind of the speaker, for, with her
saucepan resting on her one hip and her dishcloth on the other, she was
forgetting her work in the glory of narration.

"What do you think that girl done when I said them last words to her,
Ambrose? She put her head down on the doctor's wife's bosom, bein's as
she had more'n the rest of us, and actually shed tears, said she thought
that the war was over, and wouldn't we let her stay on for a time until
mebbe we'd like her better. And at this the ladies was so outdone they
kind of scurried off without gettin' down to anything definite. But I
fixed up matters on the way home. I told 'em that if Miss Dunham
wouldn't go polite fer the askin', why, 'Pennyrile' could try and see
what freezin' out would do, so there ain't a single woman or girl in
this here town goin' to exchange the time of day with that girl, ask her
to come in and set fer a spell or even bow to her on the street."

Still Ambrose remained silent. He knew that Mrs. Barrows was not unkind,
but that she loved a fight for its own dramatic sake, and yet what could
he do or say to her now that would not by the very force of opposition
make things worse for Miner's romance?

Susan was growing restless, for she was missing the clash of steel that
usually came from the striking of her neighbour's against hers.

"One of the ladies said we was boycottin'," she concluded, showing plain
evidences of her wish to retire into her own home for the night; "seemed
kind of foolish to me, bein's as there ain't so much as a boy in it."

Perforce Ambrose had now to withdraw. And yet he said nothing, although
as he moved slowly across her side yard Susan thought she heard him
mutter: "I was a stranger and you took me in."

Sternly then she ordered her offspring to bed, but, before following
her, lingered until the last vestige of her