sterin' me?" he
sez, glarin' at her. "Do you think 'at you're too big to be whipped?"

She raised her eyes an' looked at him then. Poor feller, he could 'a'
torn his tongue out by the roots the minute it was guilty o' that fool
speech; but she didn't spare him. She let him have the full effect o'
that look, an' he seemed to shrivel up. "I reckon you're big enough to
whip me--once," she said; "but I'm of age, an' I'm mighty sure 'at that
would be the finishin' touch 'at would break the bonds what seem to
hold me to this house. I probably have bad blood o' some kind in me;
but I'm not so ill-favored but what I can find a man to go along with
me when I do conclude to go." She looked at me, an' the ol' man looked
at me, an' I felt like a red-hot stove; but I straightened back in my
chair, an' I cleared my throat. "I ain't no mind-reader," sez I, "but
I'm bettin' on that same card."

The ol' man couldn't think up a come-back; so in about a minute he
pushed back his chair, upsettin' it an' lettin' it lay where it fell.
He went up to his room, slammin' the door after him, an' Barbie got out
a pony an' galloped off to the hills.

But the ol' man hadn't give up his project. He opened it again, an' was
mighty crafty in the way he handled it, until finally he engineered it
through. The' was purt' nigh forty of 'em who arrived to make merry
over Thanksgivin'. Some of 'em came the day before, an' some of 'em two
days before, an' some didn't arrive till the day itself, 'cause they
had lived such a ways. The' was four women an' three unmarried ladies,
countin' Miss Wiggins, the Spike Crick schoolmarm, who was a friendly
little thing, though a shade too coltish for her years. Most o' the men
was still liable to matrimony.

Jabez had an idee in his head, an' it didn't take no ferret to nose it
out, neither. He was extra cordial to the store-keeper from Webb
Station, an' a young Englishman by the name o' Hawthorn, finally
settlin' down to Hawthorn an' playin' him wide open. We had a mighty
sociable time, an' whenever we wasn't eatin' we played games. Barbie
did just exactly what of Cast Steel played her to do. She was too
red-blooded to let an outsider see 'at she'd been bad hurt; so she
brazened up an' laughed an' danced an' sang, an' showed 'em games they
hadn't never dreamt of before.

Most of 'em went home by Sunday night, but Hawthorn was prevailed upon
to stay a week longer. He had a little ranch up in the hills, an'
seemed a