"Man's job, indeed!" he said to himself, scornfully; "Cindy hain't got no sech crazy notions!"
VI
DEVIL'S DITTIES
The day following the widow-man's disastrous visit to the women on the hill, Aunt Ailsie came in, as she had planned, to get her first taste of learning. She had also planned, of course, to bring Jeems in and engineer his courting; and her disappointment was keen as she rode along on old Darb, meditating pensively upon the tragedy of the day before.
"They throwed away as good a chanct as ary old maid could look to have, and all because not a single one of 'em was able to milk a cow. I'm clean out of heart, and hain't aiming to trouble my mind to hunt up nary 'nother husband for 'em. Hit wouldn't be no use if I did, there not being a living man in this country would marry a woman that can't milk. May be that's the reason they hain't kotched 'em a man down in the level land."
Before Aunt Ailsie reached the tents on the hill, she saw her "pieded" heifer picking around up near the timber line, and sighed deeply.
"Pore creetur, I'd never a-lent you to 'em if I had knowed; hit'll be your ruination having that air little Billy Lee feisting round you."
When she reached the tents, the cooking class was over, as was also the sewing lesson, and the singing was just beginning in the largest tent, where even more young folks than usual were gathered.
Amy was playing the baby organ, but Virginia, who stood near her, straightening up the book-shelves, saw Aunt Ailsie and beckoned for her. As she approached the two, she sighed deeply again.
"Pore gals, they don't know what they missed yesterday; they don't know how nigh they come to being tuck off the cull-list!"