ure to win. That's how I put it to
myself. After I'd wrastled with the subject up hill an' down dale,
till I couldn't see nothin' else in the face of natur', I done it. Out
in the East, where I come from, they'd 'a' had me up for it; an' I
don't know but they will here. But I had to, Kit, I had to. I was
dead sick an' starvin' for a sight of you an' the boy, an' mis'able
with blamin' myself that I hadn't treated you different when I had
you, so you wouldn't have run away. You was a master hand at that
business, wasn't you, girl? I hope you've quit now, though."

"I think so. Here I was born, and here I hope to stay. All my runnings
have begun and ended here. But what did you do, Father Abel?"

"Oh, Sis! that name does me good. Promise you'll never tell,--not till
your dyin' day."

"I can't promise that; but I'll not tell if I can help it."

"Well, you always had a tender conscience. Yet I can trust your love
better 'n ary promise. Well--_I--burnt--it!_"

"Burned it? Your house? Your home? Yours and Mercy's? Why--Abel!"

The pioneer squared his mighty shoulders, and faced her as a defiant
child might an offended mother.

"Yes, I did. The house, the bed-quilts, the antiquated bedstead, the
whole endurin' business. It was the only way. Year after year she'd
keep naggin' for me to move on further into the wilderness. _Me_,
that was starvin' for folks, an' knew she was! It was just plumb
lonesomeness made her what she is: a nagger. So, at last--you've heard
about worms turnin', hain't you? I watched, an' when she'd gone
trudgin' off on a four-mile tramp, pretendin' somebody's baby was
sick, but really meanin' she was that druv to hear the sound of
another woman's voice, I took pity on her--an' myself--an' set
fire to that hateful old heirloom of a bedstead; an' whilst it was
burnin' I just whipped out the old fiddle, an' I played--my! how
I played! Every time a post fell into the middle, I just danced.
'So much nearer folks!' I thought. And the rag-carpet an' the
nineteen-hunderd-million-patch-bedspread--Kit, I've set there, day
after day, an' seen Mercy cuttin' up whole an' decent rags, an' sewin'
'em together again, till I've near gone stark mad. Fact. I used to
wonder if it wasn't a sort of craziness possessed her to do that
foolishness. Now, it's all over. She lays the fire to an Indian feller
that I've spoke fair to, now an' again, an' that had been round our
way huntin' not long before. I don't know where he co