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Updated: June 10, 2025


As for Jim Woppit, he showed not the slightest partiality toward any one of the three suitors; with all he was upon terms of equal friendship. It seemed as if Jim had made up his mind in the beginning to let the best one win; it was a free, fair, square race, so far as Jim was concerned, and that was why Jim always had stanch backers in Jake Dodsley, Barber Sam, and Three-fingered Hoover.

In this hour of her departure she felt herself drawn even more strangely and tenderly toward that weird, incomprehensible creature; such a tugging at her heart the girl had never experienced till now. What would Miss Woppit say what would she think? The thought of going away with never so much as a good-by struck Mary Lackington as being a wanton piece of heartlessness.

The fascination which Miss Woppit exercised over her was altogether new to Mary; here was a woman of lowly birth and in lowly circumstances, illiterate, neglected, lonely, yet possessing a charm an indefinable charm which was distinct and potent, yet not to be analyzed yes, hardly recognizable by any process of cool mental dissection, but magically persuasive in the subtlety of its presence and influence.

"The girl is skeered," said Jim Woppit, "and I don't know that I wonder at it. Women folks is nervous-like, anyhow, and these doings of late hev been enough to worrit the strongest of us men." "Why, there ain't an hour in the day," testified Casey, "that Miss Woppit don't telephone down here to ask whether everything is all right, and whether Jim is O. K." "I know it," said Jim.

Finally Miss Woppit retired to her own delectable bower in the kitchen with the parting remark that she would sleep in a sense of perfect security; this declaration flattered her protectors, albeit she had no sooner closed the door than she piled the kitchen woodbox and her own small trunk against it a proceeding that touched Three-fingered Hoover deeply and evoked from him a tender expression as to the natural timidity of womankind, which sentiment the crafty Barber Sam instantly indorsed in a tone loud enough for the lady to hear.

Hardly, therefore, had Jim Woppit and his posse flourished out of camp when Three-fingered Hoover and Barber Sam, carrying Mother and the famous guitar, returned along the main road toward The Bower. When the cabin came in view the cabin on the side hill with hollyhocks standing guard round it one of those subtle fancies in which Barber Sam's active brain abounded possessed Barber Sam.

In that time Mary became friendly with Miss Woppit, as intimate, in fact, as it was possible for anybody to become with her. Mary found herself drawn strangely and inexplicably toward the woman.

In spite of her unacquaintance with the artifices of the world Miss Woppit exhibited the daintiest skill at turning the drift of the conversation whenever, by the most studied tact, Mary Lackington succeeded in bringing the conversation around to a point where the virtues of Three-fingered Hoover, as a candidate for Miss Woppit's esteem, could be expatiated upon.

The boys were convivial, if not boisterous. But Jim Woppit, wearing the big silver star of his exalted office on his coat-front, was present in the interests of peace and order, and the severest respect was shown to the newly elected representative of municipal dignity and authority.

So Mary told her all about the sights she had seen, the places she had been to, the people she had met, the books she had read, the dresses she but, no, Miss Woppit cared nothing for that kind of gossip now you 'll agree that she was a remarkable woman, not to want to hear all about the lovely dresses Mary had seen and could describe so eloquently.

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