"Lawsy me!" Mrs. Briskow planted her hoe in the soil and turned
her back upon Gray. "Allie! Yore pa has gone an' done it again.
Here's another of his fool notions."

The women regarded each other silently, their facial expressions
hidden beneath their bonnets; then the mother exposed her
countenance a second time, and said, "Mister, this is Allegheny,
our girl."

Miss Allegheny Briskow lifted her head, nodded shortly, and stared
over the hoe handle at Gray. Her gaze was one of frank curiosity,
and he returned it in kind, for he had never beheld a creature
like her. Gray was a tall man, but this girl's eyes met his on a
level, and her figure, if anything, was heavier than his. Nor was
its appearance improved by her shapeless garment of faded wash
material. Her feet were incased in a pair of men's cheap "brogans"
that Gray could have worn; drops of perspiration gleamed upon her
face, and her hair, what little was visible beneath the sunbonnet,
was wet and untidy. Altogether she presented a picture such as
some painter of peasant types might have sketched. Garbed
appropriately, in shawl and sabots, she would have passed for some
European plowwoman of Amazonian proportions. Allegheny! It was a
suitable name, indeed, for such a mountainous person. Her size was
truly heroic; she would have been grotesque, ridiculous, except
for a certain youthful plasticity and a suggestion of tremendous
vigor and strength that gave her dignity. Her ample, ill-fitting
dress failed to hide the fact that her robust body was well, even
splendidly molded.

Gray's attention, however, was particularly challenged by the