“Did he get down on his knees?” asked Sally; “what did he say?”
“I don’t remember a word; we burst out laughing, and jumped up and down on the limbs till the apples peppered down on them. Jerusha broke away and ran screaming to the house, and Mr. Watkins made a mad scramble for the gate.”
“Oh, mother, mother!” exclaimed Mary; “how could you?”
“Served the old skeezicks just right,” was Aunt ‘Liza’s unfeeling rejoinder.
“Shame on you for spoiling such a romance,” said Alta, laughingly; “how dared you?”
“Well, we got so hungry for fun those days we did do things that were rowdy, perhaps; but if our fun seemed a little rough at times, there wasn’t anything really wicked in it. I guess the spirit of the wild West was just bubbling over in us, that’s all.”
“Is the spirit of the West so different, Mrs. Willis?” asked Alta.
“Perhaps not; yet it seems to me that those who live here long catch something of the wild freedom of these old mountains. Haven’t you felt it? You are a Western girl through and through, even though you haven’t been here so long.”
“Do you think so? Am I wild?”
“You’re a mixture of ginger and sugar,” said Sally.