But Jacob was indisposed to conversation on this theme; he said nothing.
'Whyn't you-uns git him ter bed?' she asked of the assemblage at large. 'He'll git stunted, a-settin' up so late in the night.'
'Waal,' said one of the huge jeans-clad mountaineers, taking his pipe from his mouth, and scrutinizing the subject of conversation, 'I 'low it takes more'n three full-grown men ter git that thar survigrus buzzard ter bed when he don't want ter go thar, an' we warn't a-goin' ter resk it.'
'I did ax him ter go ter bed, D'rindy,' said another of the bearded giants, 'but he 'lowed he wouldn't. I never see a critter so pompered ez Jacob; he ain't got no medjure o' respec' fur nobody.'
The subject of these strictures gazed unconcernedly, first at one speaker, then at the other. Dorinda still looked at him, her face transfigured by its tender smile. But she was fain to exert her authority. 'Waal, Jacob,' she said decisively, 'ye mus' gin yer cornsent ter go ter bed, arter a while.'
Jacob calmly nodded. He expected to go to bed some time that night.
The hounds had taken advantage of Dorinda's entrance to creep into the room and adjust themselves among the family group about the fire. One of them, near Jacob, lured by the tempting plumpness, put out a long, red tongue, and gave a furtive lick to his fat white leg. The little mountaineer promptly doubled his plucky fist, and administered a sharp blow on the black nose of the offender, whose yelp of repentant pain attracted attention to the canine intruders. Ab Cayce rose to his feet with an oath. There was a shrill chorus of anguish as he actively kicked them out with his great cowhide boots.
'Git out'n hyar, ye dad-burned beastises! I hev druv ye out fifty times sence sundown; now stay druv!'
He emphasized the lesson with several gratuitous kicks after the room and the porch were fairly cleared. But before he was again seated the dogs were once more clustered about the door, with intent bobbing heads and glistening eyes that peered in wistfully, with a longing for the society of their human friends, and a pathetic anxiety to be accounted of the family circle.
There was more stir than usual in the interval between supper and bedtime. During the three memorable days that Dorinda had sojourned in Tuckaleechee Cove, Miranda Jane's ineffective administration had resulted in domestic chaos in several departments. The lantern by which the cow was to be milked was nowhere to be found. The filly-like Miranda Jane, with her tousled mane and black forelock hanging over her eyes, was greatly distraught in the effort to remember where it had been put and for what it had been last used, and was 'plumb beat out and beset,' she declared, as she cantered in and cantered out, and took much exercise in the search, to little purpose. One of the men rose presently, and addressed himself to the effort. He found it at last, and handed it to Dorinda without a word. He did not offer to milk the cow—as essentially a feminine task, in the mountains, as to sew or knit. When she came back she sat down among them in the chair usually occupied by her grandmother—who had in her turn gone on a visit to 'Aunt Jerushy' in Tuckaleechee Cove—and as she busied herself in putting on her needles a sizable stocking for Jacob she did not join in the fragmentary conversation.