"Ye don't opine thet-thar gran'pap o' your'n aims to git hitched ag'in at his age, do ye, Tiny? Hit'd be plumb scand'lous--an' him eighty past. At thet age, he's bound to have one foot in the grave, fer all he's so tarnation spry an' peart in his carryin's on."
"Lord knows what he'll do," the girl replied, carelessly. "He's allers been given credit fer havin' fotchin' ways with women. I hope he won't, though. They say, folks what marry upwards o' eighty is mighty short-lived."
The topic led Zeke's mother to broach apprehension of her own: "Tiny, ye don't have no idee thet our Zeke's gone daffy on some o' them Evish-lookin' critters down below, like ye showed me their picters in the city paper oncet?"
"Naw, no danger o' thet," was the stout assurance. "Zeke's got too much sense. Besides, he hain't had no time to git rich yit. The paper done said as how them kind's arter the coin."
As she went her way, the girl's mind reveled in thoughts of the days to come, when Zeke should be rich in sooth, and his riches for her. She swung her sun-bonnet in vigorous slaps against her bare legs, to scatter the ravenous mosquitoes and yellow flies, swarming from the thickets, and she smiled contentedly.
"P'r'aps, them women's got more edication 'n me," she mused aloud, complacently, "but I kin fill them silk stockin's plumb up." Her face grew brooding with a wistful regret in the sudden droop of the tender red lips. "I 'low I jest orter 'a' swung onto thet-thar neck o' his'n an' hollered fer Parson, and got spliced 'fore he went." She shook her head disconsolately. "Why, if he don't come back, I'll be worse nor the widders. Humph, I knows 'em--cats. They'll say: 'Tiny Siddon didn't never have no chance to git married--her disperzition an' her looks wa'n't compellin' 'nough to ketch a man.'"
The great dark eyes were clouded a little with bitter disappointment, when, two hours later, the girl came swiftly down the steep slopes from Cherry Lane, for once again there had been no letter for her. Despite her courage, Plutina felt a chill of dismay before the mystery of this silence. Though faith was unshaken, bewilderment oppressed her spirit. She could not understand, and because she could not understand, her grief was heavy to bear. Then, presently, she chanced upon a new mystery for her distraction--though this was the easier to her solving.
As she descended into a hollow by Luffman's branch, which joins Thunder Branch a little way above the Higgins' clearing, Plutina's alert ears caught a sound that was not of the tumbling waters. Through all the noises of the stream where it leaped and sprayed in miniature falls over cluttering bowlders and fallen pines, she could distinguish the splashing of quick footsteps in the shallows. Some instinct of caution checked the girl's advance. Instead of going forward openly, she turned aside and approached the bank where crowding alders and ivy formed a screen. Here, she parted the vines stealthily, and peered up the water-course.