u air doin' it fur a purpose, then the chances air that you'll be
happy all day. But ef you help a feller with the idee of it a makin' you
happy, it won't, somehow. It's like the card player a givin' a man money
becaze he thinks it will fetch him good luck. I ricolleck one time I
seed a big feller a bullyin' a po' little devil, an' I told him to quit
an' he wouldn't, an' I whaled him. Didn't think nuthin' about it till I
got nearly home an' I foun' myse'f a whistlin' like a bird, an' all that
day I was as happy as a lark."

"Of co'se, ef you had a fight," Margaret spoke up. "To you it was like
eatin' a piece o' June apple pie. Ah, don't I ricolleck once when we
went to a political speakin'? I reckon I do. A settin' thar jest as
quiet as could be, a listin' to a man that was makin' the puttiest
speech, a talkin' like a preacher, an' all at once you hopped up an'
made at him an' I never seed such a fight--an' you come a walkin' back
to me with yo' hands full of his hair. Laws a massy, don't I ricolleck
it?"

"Talkin' putty! W'y, Margaret, the feller was a tellin' of a lie. I
didn't want to fight him an' break up the meetin', an' I was showin'
that by settin' thar so quiet. But when he begun to lie, it was my duty
to remind him of it."

"Wall," she replied, after a moment's silence, "if that preacher out
thar at Dry Fork' to-day begins to say things that you think ain't true,
jest set thar an' say nuthin', fur it ain't none o' yo' business."

"That's right, Margaret. I don't kere what a man says when he's a
preachin', jest so he don't p'int at me. He kin say that Moses drunk up
the Red Sea ef he wants to--but he mustn't p'int as if he could prove it
by me."

"Oh, it would do you a world of good ef he did p'int at you. Nuthin' on
the yeth would please you so much."

Down into the lowlands lying along a blue river the wagon rolled. Here
the vegetation was rank, and the tops of the hickory trees were dim in
the dazzling blue above. Great birds with long legs stretched out far
behind, flew past, ancient war-bolts they seemed; and a flying squirrel
looped his flight from one tree to another. The tall rattle weed, in
bloom, nodded a yellow salute as they passed.

"We are the guests of honor," said Mrs. Mayfield. "They have marshalled
a gay army of soldiers to meet us."

"The roots of them weeds is pizen," Jasper spoke up, cutting off a
yellow plume with his whip. "They look suthin' like the stalk of
angelica an' someti