n I dast to know ef I wuz gwine to die fer it.
Hit'll take somebody lots smarter'n' stronger'n me."

Teague laughed, and then relapsed into seriousness. After a while he
called Sis. The girl came running in, her dark eyes flashing, her black
hair bewitchingly tangled, and her cheeks flushing with a colour
hitherto unknown to the mountain.

"What now, pap?"

"I wuz thes a-thinkin' ef maybe you oughtn't to bresh up an' start to
school down in Gullettsville."

"O pap!" the girl exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight. She was
about to spring upon Teague and give him a severe hugging, when
suddenly her arms dropped to her side, the flush died out of her face,
and she flopped herself down upon a chair. Teague paid no attention to
this.

"Yes, siree," he continued, as if pursuing a well-developed line of
argument; "when a gal gits ez big ez you is, she hain't got no business
to be a-gwine a-whoopin' an' a-hollerin' an' a-rantin' an' a-rompin'
acrost the face er the yeth. The time's done come when they oughter be
tuck up an' made a lady out'n; an' the nighest way is to sen' 'em to
school. That's whar you a-gwine--down to Gullettsville to school."

"I shan't, an' I won't--I won't, I won't, I _won't!_" exclaimed Sis,
clenching her hands and stamping her feet. "I'll die first."

Teague had never seen her so excited,

"Why, what's the matter, Sis?" he asked with unfeigned concern.

Sis gave him a withering look.

"Pap, do you reckon I'm fool enough to traipse down to Gullettsville
an' mix with them people, wearin' cloze like these? Do you reckon I'm
fool enough to make myself the laughin'-stock for them folks?"

Teague Poteet was not a learned man, but he was shrewd enough to see
that the Mountain had a new problem to solve. He took down his rifle,
whistled up his dogs, and tramped skyward. As he passed out through his
horse-lot, a cap and worm of a whisky-still lying in the corner of the
fence attracted his attention. He paused, and turned the apparatus over
with his foot. It was old and somewhat battered.

"I'll thes about take you," said Teague, with a chuckle, "an' set up a
calico-factory. I'll heat you up an' make you spin silk an' split it
into ribbens."

It was a case of civilisation or no civilisation, and there is nothing
more notorious in history--nothing more mysterious--than the fact that
civilisation is not over-nice in the choice of her handmaidens. One day
it is war, another it is slavery. Every s