"Swing y'r pardners!" shouted the fiddler, flourishing his bow. Around flew the lasses, with skirts and ribbons flying; down came the boots of the cowboys, their spurs clanking time to the music. The room grew more stifling.
Among the late-comers was a middle-aged woman, immaculately clean. Her snapping black eyes were set close to her nose, which was sharp and thin. Her lips closed firmly. Her thin black hair, drawn tightly back, was fastened in a tight wad at the back of her head. She wore an antiquated black alpaca dress, sans buttons, sans collar, sans cuffs; but the crowning glory of her costume, and her particular pride, was a breastpin of hair grapes. She was accompanied by an easy-going, stubby little Irishman, and a freckle-faced, tow-headed lad of ten.
"Maw, Maw!" said the child, "there's my teacher!"
"Mind y'r mannerses," said the woman, as she cuffed him on the ear.
"I am mindin' my mannerses," he said sulkily.
The teacher saw the shadow on the child's face, stepped forward to greet him, then extended her hand to the mother, saying:
"Good evening, Mrs. Black. I am Brigham's teacher."
But Mrs. Murphy was on the warpath.
"I'm not Miz. Black," she snapped, assuming an air of offended dignity; "I'm Miz Murphy, the wife o' Patrick Murphy. This is my man," pointing to the stubby Irishman, with the air of a tragedy queen. The teacher thereupon shook hands with Patrick. Mrs. Murphy continued:
"My first husband were a Young, my second a Thompson, my third a Wigger, my fourth a Black, and my fifth a Murphy."