money for the Lord t' build
a school. Losh! A stood it long as A could! Then A jumped up! 'Twas
a hot night, an' A'd ripped off m' coat! A'm no sure my collar hadn't
slumped t' a jelly, too! Says I, 'If y'r reverences will excuse a
plain Western man speakin' plain Western speech, A want t' say A don't
like t' hear strong well able-bodied men whinin' an' beggin' th' _dear
sisters_ t' help them.' Says I, 'If th' brothers will just peel off
their coats an' build their own fences, they'll find the Lord 'ull help
them without any whinin' an' beggin'! Peel off y' coats, an' y'r dude
duds,' says I, 'an' go t' work, an' don't insult God Almighty an'
disgust the women folk wi' that milk-sop bottle-baby rubber-ring talk.'"

"What did the meeting say?" asked Eleanor, surprised out of herself.

"Oh, A dunno that they said much at all! They kind o' stomped, tho'."

CHAPTER XXIII

IT AIN'T THE TRUTH I'M TELLIN' YOU: IT'S ONLY WHAT I'VE HEERD

They were opposite the Cabin. Now, by all the tricks of stage-craft
and story-craft, the Ranger should have been standing posed in the
doorway; but he wasn't. So different is fact from fiction--so much
harder, always; so brutally inconsiderate of our desires; so much more
surprisingly beautiful than we can desire. The door stood open and
empty.

"Wait! A want to leave a note," said Matthews.

"May I look in and see what bachelor confusion is like?" asked Eleanor.

She wanted to see if he had noticed the framed picture. Noticed--bless
you? The thing hung skugee on its nail; and there was a sprig of
mountain everlasting stuck in the wire; and Eleanor would really have
liked to see whether the glass above that picture were blurred. She
leaned over the couch examining it while Matthews wrote a note; and she
went hurriedly out of the door hot of face and happy.

The old man's note read: _We're going along to the Ridge to see that
little Irish runt. If you chance back, will you happen along to see
the old man. I'll keep her till six._

"It ain't the truth I'm tellin' y': it's ownly what I've heerd."

Meestress Lizzie O'Finnigan stood in the opening of the tent flap, a
lonely little face, a lonely little figure in her tawdry rags, a lonely
little soul in the great lone Forest, like a little mite lost in the
big universe, Eleanor thought. She was telling them about the
"Throuble expected at th' moine; an' faather bein' on hand t' take a
fist; an' th' gen'leman from