mother, and eaten his breakfast of greasy bacon and corn-bread. On
that day it had been his habit for months to disappear early, come
back for his dinner, slip quietly away again and return worn out
and tired at milking-time. Invariably for a long time his mother
had asked:

"Whut you been a-doin', Jason?" And invariably his answer was:

"Nothin' much."

But, by and by, as the long dark mountaineer, Steve Hawn, got in
the daily habit of swinging over the ridge, she was glad to be
free from the boy's sullen watchfulness, and particularly that
morning she was glad to see him start as usual up the path his own
feet had worn through the steep field of corn, and disappear in
the edge of the woods. She would have a long day for courtship and
for talk of plans which she was keeping secret from little Jason.
She was a Honeycutt and she had married one Hawn, and there had
been much trouble. Now she was going to marry another of the
tribe, there would be more trouble, and Steve Hawn over the ridge
meant to evade it by straightway putting forth from those hills.
Hurriedly she washed the dishes, tidied up her poor shack of a
home, and within an hour she was seated in the porch, in her best
dress, with her knitting in her lap and, even that early, lifting
expectant and shining eyes now and then to the tree-crowned crest
of the ridge.

Up little Jason went through breaking mist and flashing dew. A
wood-thrush sang, and he knew the song came from the bird of which
little Mavis was the human counterpart. Woodpeckers were hammering