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Updated: June 13, 2025
Idy had fallen back into the seat without a word or cry, and sat there bolt upright, her face so white that it gleamed through the meshes of her veil. "Well," she said, with a long panting breath, "that was a pretty close call fer kingdom come, wasn't it?" The stranger, who was stroking the pinto's nose, and talking to him coaxingly, laughed. "Hello, Park!" he said as the latter came up.
The girl gave him a look of radiant contempt, and he spoke again hurriedly, anxious to prevent a relapse in the conversation. "You was sayin' somethin' to-day about signin' the pledge, Idy: I've been layin' off to sign the pledge this good while. The next time there's a meetin' of the W. X. Y. Z. women, you fetch on one o' their pledges, an' I'll put my fist to it."
The man stepped forward, and confronted the señora. She looked at him gravely, and shook her head. He was a small, heavily bearded man, with soft, bashful brown eyes, which fell shyly under the señora's placid gaze. "She don't understand you, Idy," he said helplessly. The girl caught his hand, and squeezed it reassuringly. "Never mind, pappy," she said, lowering her voice; "I'll fetch her.
Nevertheless, the wit of his inamorata rankled, and after dinner he went with Eben to the barn to "hitch up." "Idy wants to go over to Elsmore this afternoon," said Eben, "an' I promised to go 'long; but I'd ought to stay with the grubbin'. If you was calc'latin' to lay off anyhow, mebbe you wouldn't mind the ride.
Now, listen," she went on, fixing her wide gray eyes on the señora, and speaking in a loud, measured voice. "I am Idy Starkweather. This is my fawther. There! Now! Sabby?" Evidently she considered failure to understand English a species of physical disability which might be overcome by strong concentration of the will. The señora turned a bland, unmoved face upon her son.
"You're welcome to try," the girl slipped her arm out of the coil of rope, "but I don't b'lieve you can, unless you drill a hole in a boulder, an' wedge the stake in." Parker led away the cow, mooing with maternal solicitude, and Idy returned to the house. When she reached the kitchen door, she turned and called between the ringing blows of the axe, "Oh, Mr.
Starkweather drooped her mouth, and raised her brows, with a sigh of extreme and most self-sacrificial virtue. "Oh, of course Idy fires up if anybody says anythin' ag'in' 'er fawther. I guess that's always the way; them that does least fer their fam'lies always gets the most credit.
"Yo' don't reckon they git a idy them funichas an' home-fixin's ain't been paid foh in th' fust place?" I took the packet from his hands and glanced over it. "No, these seem to be all right, Clem only freight is charged for. But you must remember Virginia is a long way off." "Yes, seh it ain't neveh raghtly come upon me befoh." "And freights are high, of course?"
I laid awake a long while tryin' to figger out a way to block his game, but the only thing I could think of was to tie him up and wear out a cinch on him. Just as I was dozin' off I had an idy. I didn't like it much at first; I had to swaller hard to down it, but the more I studied it the better it looked, so for fear I'd weaken I rolled over and went to sleep.
Cameron raised an upstairs window an' began shootin' with her bean-blower. I've no idy what she was shootin' at; but she hit me twice in the boot-leg, an' blame if it didn't sting like a whip. Ches jerked loose while I was rubbin' the sore spot, an' as I glanced up I saw the three dark forms comin' after us followed closer by the devil-dragon, his face fairly drippin' with liquid fire.
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