"He's wrong in his mind or his liver or his lights, an' the fust needfulness is to set 'em right.
"He's a doin' the right thing in a goin' off up into the high mountings. It'll straighten out the liver an' lights an' I'll make Theonidas go with him, jes' to take the rough off, an' to keep him in company like. That'll be healthier fer him.
"They's somethin' about a gal in the case, but jes' naturally I couldn't git at that. Men is sech fools 'bout women anyhow! A young feller will pick one purty gal out'n a dozen, all on 'em jes' as purty an' jes' as smart as she is, an' ef she gives him the mitten he'll go mournin' about, jes' as ef she was the onliest tadpole in the puddle, while all the rest o' the dozen purty gals is a standin' ready to make as big a fool out'n him as ever she could 'a' done. It's cur'ous but 'tain't to be helped no way, I reckon.
"Howsomever the thing to do is to git him interested in somethin', an' I kin manage that. He'll git healthy like, up thar' in the high mountings, an' by the time he comes back I'll git somethin' ready fer him to do."
Boyd was already better in spirits when he greeted the sun the next morning from the top of a hill near Judy's place. The air of the mountains had been good for him. Better still had been Judy's cordiality and her naturalness. After all his depression had been rooted in the artificialities of human association, and in Judy Peters's company there was no such artificiality. She had not hesitated to interrupt his narrative of events at various points to tell him that in this or that particular he had been a "darned fool," or a "frosted potater vine," or a "dod dasted idjit," or something else of the sort that she thought helpful to her endeavor to bring him back to a healthy mental condition.
Her main reliance for his restoration to normality, however, was in getting something strenuous for him to do. "Hard work's the calomel he needs, an' a good hard fight's his quinine. It'll cure his chills, an' I'll git it ready fer him."
With that determination fixed in her mind, Judy knocked the ashes out of her pipe, covered up the kitchen fire, set some roe herrings to soak, and went to bed. Sleep was to her healthy soul a matter of course.
XVII
JUDY INFORMS HERSELF AND MAKES PLANS
It was well past midsummer when Westover after a stay of three days went from Judy Peters's place up into the higher and more desolate parts of the mountain region. He was accompanied by Theonidas, whose instructions from his mother were minute and explicit.
"B'ar in mind, Theonidas," she said to him in an intimate conversation, "as how your duty's to keep him busy with things outsiden' hisself. He's got too many books 'long with him, but they's good ef he don't git to readin' of 'em by daylight. You's got to look out fer that. Ef you find him a readin' an' a broodin' by daylight, you jes' find out somethin' 'bout a b'ar or a catamount hangin' round, an' git him to lookin' fer that. An' ef he gits to readin' too late o' nights, showin' as how his min's oneasy like, you kin git up a night hunt or somethin' like that, or ef that don't work you kin go out an' yell like a painter till he gits his gun."