“No. I didn’t dast. My Pap was with me, but I went home and cried. Can you beat it?”
“Oh, my dear, you were in love. You surely were,” cried Emma.
“Was I?” wondered the mountain girl. “Was you ever that way, Emma?”
“Ever? Oh, help!” murmured Miss Briggs. “Judy, she is even making love to these fine cowboys. Doesn’t that make you jealous?”
“Jealous? Of them rough-necks? Wal, I reckon not. I don’t reckon on that kind of critter. I want a real man, I want to fly, to see what’s on t’other side of them mountain ranges. I want to be a real lady an’ know ’bout things. My gosh, how I want to be like that! It’s right in here!” cried Judy, clapping a hand over her heart. “I want to so much that it aches, it hurts like as if a rattler had given me a jab there. I tried poulticin’ but it wan’t no good. Pap said it was what I needed, but it wan’t, and here I am. What do you reckon I ought to do?” finished Judy, passing a quick hand over her eyes.
The Overlanders did not laugh. There was a tragic note in the voice of the mountain girl that stirred their sympathies and moved them. Grace slipped an arm about her.
“Judy, I wish you might come with us while we are riding the ranges. Perhaps we might teach you things that would make you more contented with your life,” said Grace, her voice full of sympathy. “Would you like to do that?”
“Like it? I’d be so dum tickled that I couldn’t hold myself.”
“Then why not come?” urged Nora.
“I don’t dast. Pap would take it out of me right smart.”