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He broke in hotly: "You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you'll have yo' hands full if you keep yo' eye on Loretty thar." Already when somebody was saying something about the feud, as June came around the corner, her quick eye had seen Loretta bend her head swiftly over her work to hide the flush of her face.
The mountaineer took off his slouched hat and ran one hand through his thick black hair. "I reckon you've heard as how all our folks air sellin' out over the mountains." "No," said Hale quickly. "Well, they air, an' all of 'em are going West Uncle Judd, Loretty and June, and all our kinfolks. You didn't know that?" "No," repeated Hale.
Now Loretta turned scarlet as the step-mother spoke severely: "You hush, Bub," and Bub rose and stalked into the house. Aunt Tilly was leaning back in her chair gasping and consternation smote the group. June rose suddenly with her string of dangling beans. "I haven't shown you my room, Loretty. Don't you want to see it?
"Loretty ain't got much sense," drawled June complacently. "'Tain't no harm. But don't you tell me! I don't want to hear nothin' 'bout Loretty noway." Again Hale laughed and June laughed, too. Imp that she was, she was just pretending to be jealous now. She could see the big Pine over his shoulder.
"Yes," broke in Bub, "and he tol' us how you carried Loretty from town on a mule behind ye, and she jest a-sassin' you, an' as how she said she was a-goin' to git you fer HER sweetheart." Hale glanced by chance at the little girl. Her face was scarlet, and a light dawned. "An' sis, thar, said he was a-tellin' lies an' when she growed up she said she was a-goin' to marry "
With that, Loretty's father passed up the path and disappeared within the house. "Nice old chap," Wakefield thought, as he walked on, past the little houses with the presumable mortgages on them. "Nice of him to go on caring for Loretty after he had lost her." He wondered whether, after all, he had better make such a point of forgetting about Dorothy!
"Whar'd you git him?" he squeaked. The girl turned her head as the mule broke into a trot. "Ain't got time to tell. They are my cousins," explained the girl. "What is your name?" asked Hale. "Loretty Tolliver." Hale turned in his saddle. "Are you the daughter of Dave Tolliver?" "Yes." "Then you've got a brother named Dave?" "Yes."
'N when they git hard up, a couple on 'em put in a month's work for some skalliwag 'company' or other, 'n so they keep agoin'. The three married ones ain't up there at all." "So you've got seven sons?" "Yes; seven boys, all told. We lost a girl," he added, with an indefinable change in his voice. "Her name was Loretty."
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