A Son of the Hills | Page 9

was concerned. I never
trusted that Yankee."
"The women, children, and old folks counted some on him in his day."
Greeley was getting interested in this heretofore myth. Moore nodded
his head suspiciously.
"They sho' did, and a mess they made of it. Did you ever hear 'bout his
mix-up with the Walden girls?"
Greeley never had and, as the last Walden "girl" was a woman of sixty
and over, he looked puzzled.
"Miss Ann, her as is now, was considerable older than Theodore Starr,
but she shined up to him and let him lead her about considerable--some
said him and her was--engaged to marry. Then there was the Walden
girl as isn't now, her they called Queenie. She was a right pert little
thing what growed into a woman like a Jonas gourd, sudden and
startling! That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back
to the old home place of his forebears to look about--there was a

general mess of things up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is
that Starr he went up into the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he
died. Lansing Hertford went off like a shot--but them Hertfords allus lit
out like they was chased--never could stand loneliness and lack of
luxury. Queenie, she done died the winter following that summer; died
of lung trouble off to some hospital way off somewhere, and Miss Ann
she settled down--an old woman from that time on! You can't get her to
speak Starr's name. You never could. Us-all tried. When things got too
hard for Miss Ann she done adopt little Miss Cyn--that chile has
considerable brightened up Miss Ann, but Lord! she never was the
same after that summer, and I hold, and allus shall, that Starr wasn't
what we-all thought him at first. A man don't go dying off in the hills
for folks what hadn't any call upon him, lest he has a reason for doing
so."
Moore loved to talk. Some one always has to be the orator of a club,
and Tansey, self-elected, filled this position in the circle around the old
stove. Greeley was bored. Past history did not concern him and Moore's
opinions he ignored. He had not been listening closely, for his thoughts
would, in spite of him, follow the ramshackle buggy down The Way.
"She had a right pleasant look and manner," he pondered. "I reckon
she'll get some fun out of her job, no matter what that job is."
CHAPTER III
It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe
actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility
of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She
had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers,
and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before.
Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house
stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the
tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the rear
of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and dozed on
the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by night.

"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale
confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over her.
I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come to
Trouble Neck?"
Tansey thought not, decidedly.
"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?"
Again Tansey shook his head.
"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and
I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to
its place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person
from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to
treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse."
Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon
what was, at best, a doubtful business.
But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested
her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently,
was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy
Morley with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy
called he told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by
telling him of her home state, Massachusetts.
"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In
exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an
education. I know plenty of boys who have worked