ut they all bred
wretchedness among those who loved them, and made life harder because
they did not die young.

One woman of that sort, I knew,--Mrs. Margarita Bays. To her face, or in
the presence of those who might repeat my words, I of course called her
"Mrs. Bays"; but when I felt safe in so doing, I called her the "Chief
Justice"--a title conferred by my friend, Billy Little. Later happenings
in her life caused Little to christen her "my Lady Jeffreys," a
sobriquet bestowed upon her because of the manner in which she treated
her daughter, whose name was also Margarita.

The daughter, because she was as sweet as the wild rose, and as gentle
as the soft spring sun, received from her friends the affectionate
diminutive of Rita. And so I shall name her in this history.

Had not Rita been so gentle, yielding, and submissive, or had her
father, Tom Bays,--husband to the Chief Justice,--been more combative
and less amenable to the corroding influences of henpeck, I doubt if
Madam Bays would ever have attained a dignity beyond that of "Associate
Justice." That strong sense of domineering virtue which belongs to the
truly just must be fed, and it waxes fat on an easy-going husband and a
loving, tender daughter.

In the Bays home, the mother's righteous sense of justice and duty,
which applied itself relentlessly upon husband and daughter, became the
weakest sort of indulgence when dealing with the only son and heir.
Without being vicious, Tom, Jr., was what the negroes called "jes' clean
triflin'," and dominated his mother with an inherited club of inborn
selfishness. Before Tom's selfishness, Justice threw away her scales and
became maudlin sentiment.

I have been intimately acquainted with the Bays family ever since they
came to Blue River settlement from North Carolina, and I am going to
tell you the story of the sweetest, gentlest nature God has ever given
me to know--Rita Bays. I warn you there will be no heroics in this
history, no palaces, no grand people--nothing but human nature, the
forests, and a few very simple country folk indeed.

Rita was a babe in arms when her father, her mother, and her
six-year-old brother Tom moved from North Carolina in two great
"schooner" wagons, and in the year '20 or '21 settled upon Blue River,
near the centre of a wilderness that had just been christened "Indiana."

The father of Tom Bays had been a North Carolina planter of considerable
wealth and culture; but when the ol