me from, an' I
never asked him. He never told. Pretended he couldn't talk Yankee.
Don't know as he could, but he could talk chicken or little pig fast
enough. Leastways, I missed such after he'd been there. Well, it
wasn't him. _It was--me!_ I burnt the bedstead, an' now we're
free folks!"

"But, Abel, why not have brought the bedstead with you, if she loved
it so? Why destroy----"

"Sissy, you don't know Mercy--not as I do. It was that furniture kept
her. So long as she had it, so long as she could kind of boast it over
her neighbors, there she'd set. We couldn't have moved it. She near
worried herself into her grave gettin' it into the wilderness, first
off, an' she ain't so young now as she was then. She'd ruther lost a
leg than had it scratched. I saved that load of feed, an' the ox team,
an' the old horse. Yes, an' my fiddle. Mercy's got money. She had it
hid. I'm goin' to settle here an' keep tavern, if I can. If not here,
then somewheres else. Anywhere where there's folks. Trees are nice;
prairies are nice; a clearin' of your own is nice; but human natur' is
nicer. Don't tell Mercy, though, or there'll be trouble! Now, Kit,
where's Gaspar?"

"_Oh, Abel! Only the dear Lord knows!_"

CHAPTER XVII.

A DAY OF HAPPENINGS.

"Abel! Abel Smith! Here I am. Right here, in our little Kitty's own
house. How'd you get along? Did the man buy?"

"Shucks!" groaned the pioneer, as these words reached him where he
stood beside the Sun Maid, eager to hear what she could tell him of
the lad Gaspar. "Shucks! I've had a right peaceful sort of day, me and
old Dobbin, and I'd most forgot it couldn't last. Say, Kit, you look
like a girl could do a'most ary thing she tried to. Just put your
shoulder to the wheel, won't you, and shut the power off Mercy's
tongue. Tell her 'tain't the fashion for women to talk much or loud,
not in big settlements like this. She's death on the fashion, Mercy
is. Why, that last gown of hers, cut out a piece of calico a neighbor
brought from the East--you'd ought to see it. She got hold a
picture-book, land knows when or where, and copied one the pictures.
Waist clean up to her neck, it's so short, and sleeves big enough to
make me a suit of clothes. Fact! Wait till you see it. She's a sight,
I tell you. But so long 's she thinks it's a touch beyond, why she's
happy. But don't let her talk so much. 'Tain't proper; not in
settlements."

The Sun Maid set her head on one side and regarded her