XXXVIII.

RUBBING AGAINST MEN

About three in the afternoon on the last day of the year John March was
in the saddle loping down from Widewood.

He was thinking of one of the most serious obstacles to the furtherance
of his enterprise: the stubborn hostility of the Sandstone County
mountaineers. To the gentlest of them it meant changes that would make
game scarcer and circumscribe and belittle their consciously small and
circumscribed lives; to the wilder sort it meant an invasion of aliens
who had never come before for other purpose than to break up their
stills and drag them to jail. As he came out into the Susie and Pussie
pike he met a frowsy pinewoodsman astride a mule, returning into the
hills.

"Howdy, Enos." They halted.

"Howdy, Johnnie. Well, ef you ain't been a-swappin' critters ag'n, to be
sho'! Looks mighty much like you a-chawed this time, less'n this critter
an' the one you had both deceives they looks a pow'ful sight."

John expressed himself unalarmed and asked the news.

"I ain't pick up much news in the Susie," said Enos. "Jeff-Jack's house
beginnin' to look mos' done. Scan'lous fine house! Mawnstus hayndy,
havin' it jined'n' right on, sawt o', to old Halliday's that a way.
Johnnie, why don't _you_ marry? You kin do it; the gal fools ain't all
peg out yit."

"No," laughed John, "nor they ain't the worst kind, either."

"Thass so; the wuss kine is the fellers 'at don't marry 'em. Why, ef I
was you, I'd have a wife as pooty as a speckle' hound pup, an' yit one
'at could build biscuits an' cook coffee, too! An' I'd jess quile down
at home in my sock feet an' never git up, lessen it wus to eat aw go to
bed. I wouldn't be a cavortin' an' projeckin' aroun' to settle up laynds
which they got too many settlehs on 'em now, an' ef you bring niggehs
we'll kill 'em, an' ef you bring white folks we'll make 'em wish they
was dead."

The two men smiled good-naturedly. March knew every word bespoke the
general spirit of Enos's neighbors and kin; men who believed the world
was flat and would trust no man who didn't; who, in their own forests,
would shoot on sight any stranger in store clothes; who ate with their
boots off and died with them on.

"Reckon I got to risk it," said John; "can't always tell how things 'll
go."

"Thass so," drawled Enos. "An' yit women folks seem like evm they think
they kin. I hear Grannie Sugg, a-ridin' home fum church, 'llow ef
Johnnie March bring air railroad