flowers began to star the green. The frog chorus, so
loud and jubilant in early spring, had subsided now except at night, when
their treble was accompanied by the bass "chug-chug" of the bull-frogs.
The mornings were vocal with the notes of yellow hammer, cuckoos; the
cooing of doves, the squawk of the jay, and the drum of the big
red-headed woodpecker sounded through the summer woods; while always in
the cool of the day came the thrush's song. The early corn was in by mid
April. About the first full moon of May the main crop was planted.

Early in June Judith, walking in the wood, brought home the splendid red
wood lily, and a cluster too of "ratsbane," with its flowers like a
little crown of white wax.

The spring restlessness was over throughout all the wild country; life no
longer stirred and rustled; the leaves hung still in the long sunny
noons. The air was clear, rinsed with frequent showers; the woods were
silent except for birds and cow bells. The crops were laid by. The
huckleberries ripened; the "sarvices" hung thick in the forest. Even the
blackberries were beginning to turn and Andy and Jeff had been back at
home more than a week, when Judith finally succeeded in getting her
forces together and her guests promised. Many of them would have to walk
four or five miles to sing and play for a few hours, tramping back at
midnight to lie down and catch what sleep they could before dawn waked
them to another day of toil. Thursday evening was set for the event. On
Wednesday the Lusk girls coming in to discuss, found Judith with shining
eyes and crimson cheeks, attacking the simple housework of the cabin.

"I wish't you'd sing while I finish my churnin'," the girl said, "I'm so
flustered looks like I can't sca'cely do anything right."

The sisters clasped hands and raised their childish faces. Cliantha had a
thin, high piping soprano like a small flute, and Pendrilla sang
"counter" to it. They were repositories of all the old ballads of the
mountains--ballads from Scotland, from Ireland, from England, and from
Wales, that set the ferocities and the love-making of Elizabeth's time or
earlier most quaintly amidst the localities and nomenclature of the
Cumberlands.

"Sing 'Barb'ry Allen,'" commanded Judith as she swung the dasher with
nervous energy.

The July sunshine filtered through the leaves of the big muscadine vine
that covered and sheltered the tiny side porch. Bees boomed about the
ragged tufts of clover