"They first settled away out in Texas," replied Wilson, "but Joe Boyd, not having his wife’s wonderful head to guide him, failed at farming there, and only about three years ago he came back to this country and bought a little piece of land over in Gilmer—the county that joins this one." "Oh, so near as that! Then perhaps she has seen her daughter and—" "Oh no, they’ve never met," said Wilson, as he took a sample pair of men’s suspenders from the case and tested the elastic by stretching it between his hands. "I know that for certain. She was in here one morning waiting for one of her teams to pass to take her to Darley, when a peddler opened his pack of tin-ware and tried to sell her some pieces I was out of. He heard me call her by name, and, to be agreeable, he asked her if she was any kin to Joe Boyd and his daughter, over in Gilmer. I could have choked the fool for his stupidity. I tried to catch his eye to warn him, but he was intent on selling her a bill, and took no notice of anything else. I saw her stare at him steady for a second or two, then she seemed to swallow something, and said, ’No, they are no kin of mine.’ And then what did the skunk do but try to make capital out of that. ’Well, you may be glad,’ he said, ’that they are no kin, for they are as near the ragged edge as any folks I ever ran across.’ He went on to say he stayed overnight at Boyd’s cabin and that they had hardly anything but streak-o’-lean-streak-o’-fat meat and corn-bread to offer him, and that the girl had the worst temper he’d ever seen. Mrs. Boyd, I reckon, to hide her face, was looking at some of the fellow’s pans, and he seemed to think he was on the right line, and so he kept talking. Old Joe, he said, had struck him as a good-natured, lazy sort of come-easy-go-easy mountaineer, but the girl looked stuck up, like she thought she was some better than appearances would indicate. He said she was a tall, gawky sort of girl, with no good looks to brag of, and he couldn’t for the life of him see what she had to make her so proud. "I wondered what Mrs. Boyd was going to do, but she was equal to that emergency, as she always has been in everything. She held one of his pans up in the light and tilted her bonnet back on her head, I thought, to let me see she wasn’t hiding anything, and said, as unconcerned as if he’d never mentioned a delicate subject. ’Look here,’ she said, thumping the bottom of the pan with her finger, 'if you expect to do any business with _me_ you’ll have to bring copper-bottom ware to me. I don’t buy shoddy stuff from any one. These pans will rust through in two months. I’ll take half a dozen, but I’m only doing it to pay you for the time spent on me. It is a bad investment for any one to buy cheap, stamped ware.’" IV