“Waal, sir! that thar child beats all. Never mind, Tennie, ye’ll meet up with a wild varmint some day when ye air follerin’ Birt off from the house, an’ I ain’t surprised none ef it eats ye! But shucks!” Mrs. Dicey continued impersonally, “I mought ez well save my breath; Tennie ain’t feared o’ nuthin’, ef Birt air by.”
The word “varmint” seemed to recall something to Tennessee. She began to chatter unintelligibly about an “ow
el
,” and to chuckle so, that Birt had sudden light upon that mysterious laugh which he had heard behind him at the bars.
In his pride in Tennessee he related how the owl had startled him, and the little girl, invisible in the darkness, had laughed.
“Tennessee ain’t pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart,” he said, affectionately, as he placed her upon her feet on the floor.
Birt was out early with his axe the next day. The air was delightfully pure after the rain-storm; the sky, gradually becoming visible, wore the ideal azure; the freshened foliage seemed tinted anew. And the morning was pierced by the gilded, glittering javelins of the sunrise, flung from over the misty eastern mountains. As the day dawned all sylvan fascinations were alert in the woods. The fragrant winds were garrulous with wild legends of piney gorges; of tumultuous cascades fringed by thyme and mint and ferns. Every humble weed lent odorous suggestions. The airy things all took to wing. And the spider was a-weaving.
Birt had felled a slender young ash, and was cutting it into lengths for the fireplace, when he noticed a squirrel, sleek woodland dandy, frisking about a rotten log at some little distance, by the roadside.
Suddenly the squirrel paused, then nimbly sped away. There was the sound of approaching hoofs along the road, and presently from around the curve a woman appeared mounted on a sorrel mare, and with a long-legged colt ambling in the rear.
It was Mrs. Griggs, setting out on a journey of some ten miles to visit her married daughter who lived on a neighboring spur. She had taken an early start to “git rid o’ the heat o’ the noon,” as she explained to Mrs. Dicey, who had run out to the rail fence when she reined up beside it. Birt dropped his axe and joined them, expecting to hear more about Nate’s grant and the gold mine. Rufe and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention. Pete and Joe were hurrying out of the house toward the group. All the dogs congregated, some of them climbing over the fence to investigate the colt, which was skittish under the ordeal. Even the turkey-gobbler, strutting on the outskirts of the assemblage, had an attentive aspect, as if he, too, relished the gossip.