"Oh, she went up to her room in September, dressed herself in a long
linen duster, did some laundry work, and the next day, with her little
shawl-strap, she lit out for the city, where she was engaged to marry a
very wealthy old man whose mind had been crowded out by an intellectual
tumor, but who had a kind heart and had pestered her to death for years
to marry him and inherit his wealth. I afterwards learned that in this
matter she had lied."

"Did you meet any other pleasant people last season?"

"Yes. I met some blooded children from Several Hundred and Fifth street.
They come here so's they could get a breath of country air and wear out
their old cloze. Their mother said the poor things wanted to get out of
the mawlstrum of meetropolitan life. She said it was awful where they
lived. Just one round of gayety all the while. They come down and salted
my hens, and then took and turned in and chased a new milch cow eight
miles, with two of 'em holdin' of her by the tail, and another on top of
her with a pair of Buffalo Bill spurs and a false face, yelling like a
volunteer fire company. Then the old lady kicked because we run short of
milk. Said it was great if she couldn't have milk when she come to the
wilderness to live and paid her little old $3 a week just as regular as
Saturday night come round.

"These boys picked on mine all summer because my boys was plain little
fellers with no underwear, but good impulses and a general desire to lay
low and eventually git there, understand. My boys is considerable
bleached as regards hair, and freckled as to features, and they are not
ready in conversation like a town boy, but they would no more drive a
dumb animal through the woods till it was all het up, or take a new
milch cow and scare the daylights out of her, and yell at her and pull
out her tail, and send her home with her pores all open, than they'd be
sent to the legislature without a crime.

"A neighbor of mine that see these boys when they was scarin' my cow to
death said if they'd of been his'n he'd rather foller 'em to their grave
than seen 'em do that. That's putting of it rather strong, but I believe
I would myself.

"We had a nice old man that come out here to attend church, he said. He
belonged to a big church in town, where it cost him so much that he
could hardly look his Maker in the face, he said. Last winter, he told
us, they sold the pews at auction, and he had an affection for one,
'specially 'c