"And you are a bad-tempered little thing," he answered.
So he and his siren, calling names at each other, parted for the first time.
Miss Moore went into the little apple orchard behind the Morris homestead, and watched a tiny chipmunk gathering leaves to line its nest—at least Judith supposed it was for that. At any rate, it picked out the dry brown leaves from beneath a maple tree near the gate, sat up on its hind legs, and pleated the leaf into its mouth deftly. It took two or three at a time, and looked very comical with the brown leaves sticking out like fans on each side of its face. She laughed so long and loudly at this, that Mrs. Morris came to the door to see if she had hysterics.
"I met a young man in the woods, Mrs. Morris," said Judith, going up to her; "a rude, long-legged young man, named Cutler. Who is he?"
"For the land's sake!" said Mrs. Morris. "Did you meet Andrew Cutler? I warrant he'd be took down if he heard you say that. He's thought a good deal of by some people, being on the school board and the council, for all he's unmarried and young; but he's too big feeling to suit me! And he don't profess religion, and is forever smokin' and shootin', and he's got a crank on books—took that off his mother; she was a Myers. They was U. E. Loyalist stock; got their farms for nothing, of course, and hung on to them. Andrew owns a fine place, and he's full of cranks about college farming. Well, 'long-legged'—that's a good one! He is long-legged, there's no mistake about that. All the Myerses are tall. There's Hannah Myers as keeps house for Andrew, and she's tall as my old man, and—for the land's sake, that milk's boiling over!" and Mrs. Morris departed indoors. Presently, out flew two chickens, a collie dog, and a cat, wild-eyed and spitting, from which signs Judith diagnosed that Mrs. Morris had made "things" fly around when she got inside—a miracle she was an adept at performing.
Andrew went home to dinner, and came back in the afternoon to harrow down the grain he had sowed. Mr. Morris came out to talk to him.
"Who is the girl you've got boarding with you?" asked Andrew.
"Oh," said Mr. Morris, "I don't just rightly know, but she's a singing woman of some kind: in the opery, she said. She and a little black-a-vised chap came driving up the lane one day last week, and before I just rightly could make out what they were, he was driving off and she was there for keeps. Next day there came a whole waggon load of trunks. Going to stay all summer, she says. She's greatly took up with the country. She wanted to tie ribbons on the cows' horns, and is bound to learn to make butter. She was going to churn the other day, and worked the dash about a dozen times, and then she scolded right sharp at the butter for not coming. Then she got a spoon and tasted the cream, and she up and says to Mother, 'Why, Mrs. Morris, you've given me sour cream to churn!' and she was real huffy. She wouldn't believe that sweet butter came off sour cream, and she just sat, and never took her eye off that churn till Mother was done with it. She was bound she wasn't going to be fooled. She's real smart some ways, though, only she don't eat a mite, and Mother's dreadful afraid her religion is kind of heathenish. She was looking out the door the other day, and she says, says she, 'It's a perfect idol!' Mother never let on, but soon as she went away Mother came out and looked about, and there was nothing like an idol, except maybe them big queer-marked stones I got down by the lime springs. What did you call 'em?"
"Petrifactions," said Andrew.
"Yes. Well, Mother always had 'em set up against the door steps kind of tasty, but Mother ain't the one to have no sich temptations around in any one's way, if they be given to sich, so she just rolled 'em along and dropped 'em into the cistern."