ing strangely mild and
disciplined since Jim Cal had broken with Blatch Turrentine and was
become a partner in his father's affairs--a husband who is out of the
good books of other people is a scold-maker with the type of woman Jim
Cal had married. To go near Pendrilla and Cliantha was to be overwhelmed
instantly with the joyous details of their wedding preparations. Judith
flinched from bringing her troubles before such happy eyes. She had but
Aunt Nancy.

It was bitter hard times at the little cabin on The Edge. Doss Provine
had begun actively looking for a "second," and his courting operations
sorely interfered with the making of the small crop. Nancy took the field
behind the plough; but her efforts came late and availed little. There
was scarcely food for their mouths; she was continually harassed by
anxiety concerning Pony, who had got to running with a bad crowd in
Hepzibah. And finally the thing happened which had not been since Big
Turkey Track was a mountain and Nancy Card was born in that small cabin.
At her wit's end, she took Little Buck and Breezy and went away to visit
a married daughter whose husband worked in a machine-shop in a valley
settlement, leaving Doss Provine to stay with his kin for the time. There
was plenty at her daughter's table, and a warm welcome awaiting her and
the children; besides, the man of the house had promised to find a job
for her spoiled boy, and give him the masculine oversight and discipline
he needed. At Hepzibah she gathered up that rather astonished young man,
exerting for once the real authority that was in her, and with him set
out on this formidable journey.

Just once old Jephthah went past that closed door. Just once he looked on
the little front yard spilling over its rived palings with autumn
blossoms. And he came home so out of joint with life, in so altogether
impossible a mood, that it was fairly unsafe to mention as innocent a
matter as the time of day to him. Up to now perhaps he had not known what
a very large place in his life those almost daily quarrels with his old
sweetheart filled. Now the restlessness which had come with the trouble
over Creed Bonbright was renewed; he wandered about aimlessly, with a
good word for nothing and nobody, and opined darkly that his liver was
out of order.

"Aunt Nancy told me one time that she would almost be willin' to wed you
to get a chance to give you a good course of spring medicine for that
thar liver," remarked Ju