, Margaret?"

"Why, dinner's about ready to take up, and them folks ain't come back.
Why, I never did see Lou as skittish as she is now. I reckon it's
because he's the son of a United States jedge."

"Oh, you've found out all about him, have you? Wall, he's sorter
skittish, too. And when his aunt talks it puts me in mind of a bird a
singin' up summers among the green leaves."

"Oh, any woman could talk thatter way if you'd put fine clothes on her.
Trouble is when a woman ain't dressed fitten to kill, nobody won't
listen to her. Common calico can't talk any better than that Mose Blake;
but silk--law me! Sings like a bird up among the green leaves. I despise
to hear a man go on thatter way--jest as if a woman ain't respectable
unless she covers herself with finery. But I want to tell you that Lou
can talk with the rest of 'em when she wants to--and so can I, for that
matter."

"Oh, you can talk, Margaret--thar ain't no doubt about that. Well, I'll
go out now and see if the hogs air gittin' along all right, and when
dinner's ready jest blow yo' ho'n."

Off from the road, not far from the house, a gulch ran zig-zag up among
the rugged hills. It was no mere ragged and unsightly drain for water
from the higher land. Flower-brightened and vine-hung, it was
deliciously cool, and gorgeous at every turn. At the bottom babbled a
rivulet, a bit of summer sky melted and poured among the green-tipped
rocks. Blooming shrubs in the giant's garden, the saplings seemed; and
hither came the birds to make their nests and to nod with half-shut eyes
in the drowsy afternoon. But after passing through this elbow corridor,
there were bare rocks, standing bold in the sun or bleak in the wind,
and here was a log hut almost hidden by bushes. It was called the mill,
and corn was ground there, but the meal was boiled in a great iron
kettle. It was Old Jasper's distillery. After leaving the house he went
up to this place, and in front of his picturesque though illegitimate
establishment, he sat down upon a stone to muse over his coming danger.

In Jasper Starbuck there was a force which, directed by education, would
have made of him a leader of men. Once a neighbor had threatened to
report him to the government, and in the night Jasper went to the house
of his enemy, called him to the door, showed him a rope, and without
saying a word went away. The neighbor knew what the rope meant. Years
before a miscreant who had assaulted a woman, was seize