"Sissy, you don't know Mercy--not as I do. It was that furniture kept her. So long as she had it, so long as she could kind of boast it over her neighbors, there she'd set. We couldn't have moved it. She near worried herself into her grave gettin' it into the wilderness, first off, an' she ain't so young now as she was then. She'd ruther lost a leg than had it scratched. I saved that load of feed, an' the ox team, an' the old horse. Yes, an' my fiddle. Mercy's got money. She had it hid. I'm goin' to settle here an' keep tavern, if I can. If not here, then somewheres else. Anywhere where there's folks. Trees are nice; prairies are nice; a clearin' of your own is nice; but human natur' is nicer. Don't tell Mercy, though, or there'll be trouble! Now, Kit, where's Gaspar?"
"Abel! Abel Smith! Here I am. Right here, in our little Kitty's own house. How'd you get along? Did the man buy?"
"Shucks!" groaned the pioneer, as these words reached him where he stood beside the Sun Maid, eager to hear what she could tell him of the lad Gaspar. "Shucks! I've had a right peaceful sort of day, me and old Dobbin, and I'd most forgot it couldn't last. Say, Kit, you look like a girl could do a'most ary thing she tried to. Just put your shoulder to the wheel, won't you, and shut the power off Mercy's tongue. Tell her 'tain't the fashion for women to talk much or loud, not in big settlements like this. She's death on the fashion, Mercy is. Why, that last gown of hers, cut out a piece of calico a neighbor brought from the East--you'd ought to see it. She got hold a picture-book, land knows when or where, and copied one the pictures. Waist clean up to her neck, it's so short, and sleeves big enough to make me a suit of clothes. Fact! Wait till you see it. She's a sight, I tell you. But so long 's she thinks it's a touch beyond, why she's happy. But don't let her talk so much. 'Tain't proper; not in settlements."
The Sun Maid set her head on one side and regarded her old friend critically; then frankly, if laughingly, remarked:
"Abel, you dear, you can beat Mercy talking, by a great length. It's funny to hear you blaming her for the very thing you do. But I like it. You can't guess how I like it, and how it brings back my childish days in the forest. Now come in and get something to eat. Then we can have another talk."