She looked after him, slowly replacing the bonnet on her head.
"He is mad, or somethin's happened. I never seed him look like he does this mornin'."
She turned the ox into another furrow, but stepped silently behind the plow. She sang no more that morning.
Beaver Cove was really a long, narrow valley, shut in by ranges of high mountains, the serried peaks sharply outlined against the sky on clear days. The mountain-sides were broken into deep ravines, and here and there, near the base, rose sheltered nooks, in which the mountaineers dwelt, cultivating patches and eking out a primitive livelihood with game and fish. It was in one of these retreats that Ephraim Hurd and his mother lived, with all the length and breadth of the valley lying below them, and the mountains overshadowing them above.
As Ephraim turned from the main settlement road into the wilder trail leading up to his house he met met Elisha Cole driving a yoke of oxen. He was whistling a dance-tune, and hailed Ephraim with a cheerful, friendly air, his whole manner betraying a suppressed exultation. Ephraim noticed it quickly, and clenched his hand on the switch he held—that manner said so plainly, "I have won her; I can afford to be friendly with you now."
"Just gittin' home?" he inquired with a jocular air.
"Yes."
"Oh, ho! Which one o' the Wood girls is it, 'Mandy, or Sary Ann?"
Ephraim flushed, but let the rude joke pass.
"Where are you goin'?"