of it. You, Andrew Jackson, stick yore pistol up agin your head
the way I tol' you. Now snap it, damn you! Keep _on_ a-snappin'! Quit
that jumpin', I tell you! Snap, it till you git through bein' scared of
it. Do it now, or by Gawd, I'll chase you over the side of the boat and
feed you to the catfish, you low-down imertation of a he-thing. Mister,"
she turned to me again, "will you please tell me how come me to be the
mother of a thing like this--me, a woman of ole Missoury; and me a
cousin of ole Simon Kenton of Kentucky beside?"

"My good woman," said I, somewhat amused by her methods of action and
speech, "do you mind telling me what is your name?"

"Name's Mandy McGovern; and I come from Pike," she answered, almost
before the words were out of my mouth. "I've been merried three times
and my first two husbands died a-fightin, like gentlemen, in
diffikilties with friends. Then along come this Danny Calkins, that
taken up some land nigh to me in the bottoms--low-downest coward of a,
man that ever disgraced the sile of yearth--and then I merried _him_."

"Is he dead, too, my dear woman?" I asked.

"Don't you 'dear woman' me--I ain't free to merry agin yit," said she.
"Naw, he ain't dead, and I ain't deevorced either. I just done left him.
Why, every man in Pike has whupped Danny Calkins one time or other. When
a man couldn't git no reputation any other way, he'd come erlong and
whupped my husband. I got right tired of it."

"I should think you might."

"Yes, and me the wife of two real men befo' then. If ever a woman had
hard luck the same is me," she went on. "I had eight chillen by my two
husbands that was real men, and every one of them died, or got killed
like a man, or went West like a man--exceptin' this thing here, the son
of that there Danny Calkins. Why, he's afraid to go coon huntin' at
night for fear the cats'll get him. He don't like to melk a keow for
fear she'll kick him. He's afraid to court a gal. He kaint shoot, he
kaint chop, he kaint do nothin'. I'm takin' him out West to begin over
again where the plowin's easier; and whiles we go along, I'm givin' him
a 'casional dose of immanuel trainin', to see if I can't make him part
way intoe a man. I dunno!" Mrs. McGovern dipped snuff vigorously.

Thereafter she looked at me carefully. "Say, mister," said she, "how
tall are you?"

"About six feet, I think."

"Hum! That's just about how tall my first husband was. You look some
like him in the face, to