sartain made a hit up here around Scarboro and along Rollin' River.

"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was
timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't
afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp
things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You
misses know more about that than I do--sure!

"Howsomever, come the second spring the Bennetts had been up here,
Mis' Bennett, old Bill's wife, was called down to see her ma, that
was sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come the
first Saturday thereafter and Bennett, _he_ had to go to Scarboro
to mill.

"You know jest how lonesome it is up here now; 'twas a whole sight
wuss in them days. There warn't no telephone, and it was more than
'two hoots and a holler,' as the feller said, betwixt neighbors.

"But Old Bill's going to mill left only Miss Sally and the three
little boys at home. Bennett had cleared a piece around the house,
scratched him a few hills of corn betwixt the stumps the year before,
and this spring was tryin' to tear out the roots and small stumps
with a pair o' steers and a tam-harrer.

"So, from the door of the cabin he'd built, Sally could see the
virgin forest all about her, while she was a-movin' about the room
getting dinner for the young 'uns. While she was at work the littlest
feller, Johnny, who was building a cobhouse on the floor, yelps up
like a terrier: