enturies. Intrenched behind an impregnable self-esteem, she
had never conceded a point, never admitted a failure, never accepted a
compromise. "It ain't no wonder that a new comer thinks he can knock
you down an' set on you for shootin' a few birds," she added, after a
moment.

"He'll find out I ain't done with him yet," growled Archie, and rising
from his seat, he took down his gun and began polishing the barrel with
an old yarn stocking of Sarah's.

The long needle missed the hole at which Blossom had pointed it, and she
looked up with a sullen droop to her mouth.

"I reckon Mr. Gay has just as good a right to his things as we have to
ours," she said.

"Right! Who wants his right?" flared Archie, turning upon her. "You'll
say next, I reckon, that he had a right to split my upper lip open if he
wanted to."

"From the way grandma carries on anybody would think that was what
_she_ wanted," persisted Blossom, adhering stubbornly to the point, "she
sounds as if she were mad because people ain't everlastingly fighting."

"You needn't think I don't see what you're aimin' at, Keren-happuch,"
rejoined Sarah, who used this name only in moments of anger, "you're
tryin' to make me think a grown man can't do anything better than get up
in the pulpit and mouth texts so soft that a babe couldn't cut its teeth
on 'em. You've had notions in yo' head about Orlando Mullen ever since
he came here, an' you ain't fooled me about 'em."

"Thar, thar, don't you begin pesterin' Blossom," interposed Abner,
aroused at last from his apathy.

"Notions about Mr. Mullen!" repeated Blossom, and though there was a hot
flush in her face, her tone was almost one of relief.

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH MOLLY FLIRTS

On a November morning several weeks later, when the boughs of trees
showed almost bare against the sky, Molly Merryweather walked down to
Bottom's store to buy a bottle of cough syrup for Reuben, who had a
cold. Over the counter Mrs. Bottom, as she was still called from an
hereditary respect for the house rather than for the husband, delivered
a coarse brown paper. The store, which smelt of dry-goods and ginger
snaps, was a small square room jutting abruptly out of the bar, from
which it derived both its warmth and its dignity.

"Even men folks have got the sperit of worms and will turn at last," she
remarked in her cheerful voice, which sounded as if it issued from the
feather bed she vaguely resembled.

"Let them turn--I c