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On the instant there arose a strange, confused, terrific uproar, from which the squeals of the white pig stood out thin and pathetic. Without waiting to see what she had accomplished, Mrs. Gammit snatched up the second bucket, and leaned forward to deliver a second stroke.
By this time he had recovered confidence and made up his mind that Mrs. Gammit was only a woman. After sniffing once more at the cracks to assure himself that the pig was still there, he went around to the stable door and crept cautiously in. As his clumsy black shape appeared in the bright opening, the pig saw it.
Gammit," said he, with an air of having lost all interest in the problem. But that did not suit his visitor at all. Her manner became more conciliatory. Leaning forward, with an almost coaxing look on her face, she murmured "I've had an idee as how it might be mind, I don't say it is, but jest it might be " and she paused dramatically. "Might be what?" inquired Barron, with reviving interest.
Gammit, "I'd be traipsin' over here nine mile thro' the hot woods to ax yer advice, Mr. Barron, if 'twarn't serious?" And she began to regret that she had come. Men never did understand anything, anyway. At this sudden acerbity the woodsman stroked his chin with his hand, to hide the ghost of a smile which flickered over his lean mouth. "Jest like a woman, to git riled over nawthin'!" he thought.
Gammit's rare appearances were always abrupt, like her speech; and it was without surprise though he had not seen her for a month or more that Joe Barron turned to greet her. "It's at yer sarvice, jest as the gun would be ef ye wanted it, Mrs. Gammit an' welcome! But come in an' set down an' git cooled off a mite. 'Tain't no place to talk, out here in the bilin' sun." Mrs.
Gammit now felt satisfied that this particular bear would trouble her no more, and she had high hopes that his experience with hot water would serve as a lesson to all the other bears with whom she imagined herself involved. The sequel fulfilled her utmost expectations.
Gammit almost strangled with the effort to keep from laughing. But she held herself in, and continued to shake down the pungent shower. A moment more, and the wildcat, after an explosion of sneezes which almost made him stand on his head, gave utterance to a yowl of consternation, and turned to flee.
Gammit sat patient and motionless beside her open window. The moon rose, seeming to climb with effort out of the tangle of far-off treetops. The faint, rhythmic breathing of the wilderness, which, to the sensitive ear, never ceases even in the most profound calm, took on the night change, the whisper of mystery, the furtive suggestion of menace which the daylight lacks.
They were all cackling wildly, and craning their necks to stare into the shed as if they had just seen a ghost there. Mrs. Gammit ran in to discover what all the fuss was about. The place was empty; but a smashed egg lay just outside one of the nests, and a generous tuft of fresh feathers showed her that there had been a tussle of some kind. Indignant but curious, Mrs.
"Not one leetle mite, you don't!" assented her host, promptly and cordially. "I was beginning to think mebbe I did!" persisted the injured lady. "Everybody knows," protested the woodsman, "as how what you don't know, Mrs. Gammit, ain't hardly wuth knowin'." "O' course, that's puttin' it a leetle too strong, Mr. Barron," she answered, much mollified.
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