The two women chatted together in the stern of Jim's boat, or sat in silence, as if they were enchanted, watching the changing shores, while the great shadows of the woods deepened upon them. They had never seen anything like it. It was a new world—God's world, which man had not marred.
At last they heard the barking of a dog, and, looking far up among the woods, they caught the vision of a new building. The boys in the boats behind yelled with delight. Ample in its dimensions and fair in its outlines, there stood the little woman's home. Her eyes filled with tears, and she hid them on Miss Snow's shoulder.
"Be ye disap'inted, little woman?" inquired Jim, tenderly.
"Oh, no."
"Feelin's a little too many fur ye?"
The little woman nodded, while Miss Snow put her arm around her neck and whispered.
"A woman is a curi's bein'," said Jim. "She cries when she's tickled, an' she laughs when she's mad."
"I'm not mad," said the little woman, bursting into a laugh, and lifting her tear-burdened eyes to Jim.
"An' then," said Jim, "she cries and laughs all to oncet, an'a feller don't know whether to take off his jacket or put up his umberell."
This quite restored the "little woman," and her eyes were dry and merry as the boat touched the bank, and the two women were helped on shore. Before the other boats came up, they were in the house, with the delighted Turk at their heels, and Mike Conlin's wife courtseying before them.