CHAPTER III
It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before.
Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by night.
"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come to Trouble Neck?"
Tansey thought not, decidedly.
"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?"
Again Tansey shook his head.
"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse."
Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon what was, at best, a doubtful business.