gain into his chair. "Lord, Miner, is
it so hard for you to tell things, even to me?" he inquired. "Out with
it!"

"Don't you go and be puttin' foolish ideas on to me if I tell you,"
Miner pleaded, "but it's just this: The women have made up their minds
to put Miss Em'ly Dunham out of Pennyrile. Course we men tried and
failed, so we give up, but when a woman starts out to do a thing, why
she does it. Can't you think of no plan to make 'em stop, Ambrose,
bein's as you've always had a kind of way with women?"

Ambrose shook his head, his homely face lined with sympathy. Poor Miner
was unconscious of his own change of attitude toward the interloper, but
surely he must not be turned back from the land of romance within whose
gracious habitations Ambrose himself could never again hope to dwell.

"I don't see just what I kin do with the women," he was obliged to
confess after a moment of hard thinking, "still ef we keep studyin' and
studyin' no doubt we kin find a way."

CHAPTER VIII

THE FEMALE DELEGATION

THERE was no question--Susan Barrows inspired and headed the female
delegation which early the next morning sallied forth to the district
schoolhouse to call on Miss Dunham. Also, there was no doubt in the
minds of any of its members before their call was made that the Yankee
teacher would hastily retreat as soon as she understood that the ladies
of Pennyroyal did not desire her presence among them and, furthermore,
would not have it. However, of the result of their visit no one was
informed during the ensuing hours of that day.

It was evening, before dark and yet some little time after supper, when
Ambrose, ruminating on his back kitchen steps and worrying over the
present situation, heard a noise of pots and pans that sounded like a
skirmish of light artillery proceeding from his neighbour's house next
door. So purposely assuming the expression of innocent solemnity that
seemed most to inflame Mrs. Susan, he cautiously stepped across from his
back yard to hers. On the door stoop he discovered Susan Jr., who, as
the occupant of a hard chair, had both white stockinged legs stuck
rebelliously out before her and, resting on her spinal column, held
"Fox's Book of Martyrs" open in her lap. However, she was _not_ reading
it.

Sensing his approach before ever he could speak, Mrs. Barrows made an
immediate appearance. She had a saucepan in her hand and her black eyes
were wary. They were well matched adversarie