It was past sundown, however, when Uncle Lot rode up, grave and silent as usual. Aunt Ailsie hardly waited for him to hang his saddle on the porch-peg before inquiring,—
"What about them quare women on the p'int?"
Uncle Lot frowned. "What should I know about quare women?" he demanded. "Hain't I a God-fearing man and a Old Primitive?"
"But setting on the grand jury all week, right there under the p'int, you must have seed 'em, 'pears like?"
"I did see 'em," he admitted, disapprovingly. "Uncle Ephraim Kent, he come in whilst we was a-starting up court a-Monday morning, and says, 'Citizens, the best thing that ever come up Troublesome is a-coming in now!' And the jedge he journeyed court, and all hands went out to see. And here was four wagons, one with a passel of women, three loaded with all manner of plunder."
"What did they look like?"
"Well enough—too good to be a-traipsing over the land by theirselves this way." He shook his head. "And as for their doings, hit's a sight to hear the singing and merriment that goes on up thar on that hill when the wind is right. Folks has wore a slick trail, traveling up and down. But not me! Solomon says, 'Bewar' of the strange woman'; and I hain't the man to shun his counsel."
"I allow they are right women—I allow you wouldn't have tuck no harm," soothed Aunt Ailsie.
"Little you know, Ailsie, little you know. If you had sot on as many grand juries as me, you wouldn't allow nothing about no woman, not even them you had knowed all your life, let alone quare, fotched-on ones that blows in from God knows whar, and darrs their Maker with naught but a piece of factory betwixt them and the elements!"
Aunt Ailsie dropped the subject. "What about Fulty?" she asked, in a troubled voice.