"Toler'ble fat," she commented with grave self-complacence. "He 'minds me sorter o' that thar tremenjious buck we hed las' September. HE war the fattes' buck I ever see. Take off his hide right straight." The big cap-ruffle flapped didactically. "Lor'-a--massy, woman!" vociferated the testy old man; "ain't I a- goin' ter? Ter hear ye a-jowin', a-body would think I had never shot nothin' likelier'n a yaller-hammer sence I been born. S'pos'n ye jes' takes ter goin' a-huntin', an' skinnin' deer, an' cuttin' wood, an' doin' my work ginerally. Pears-like ye think ye knows mo' 'bout'n my work'n I does. An' I'll bide hyar at the house." Mrs. Griggs nodded her head capably, in nowise dismayed. "I dunno but that plan would work mighty well," she said. This conjugal colloquy terminated as she glanced up and saw Birt. "Why, thar's young Dicey a-hint ye. Howdy Birt! 'Light an' hitch!" "Naw'm," rejoined Birt, as he rode into the enclosure and close up to the doorstep. "I hain't got time ter 'light." Then precipitately opening the subject of his mission. "I kem over hyar ter see Nate. Whar hev he disappeared ter?" "Waal, now, that's jes' what I'd like ter know," she replied, her face eloquent with baffled curiosity. "He jes' borried his dad's claybank mare, an' sot out, an' never 'lowed whar he war bound fur. Nate hev turned twenty-one year old," she continued, "an' he 'lows he air a man growed, an' obligated ter obey nobody but hisself. From the headin' way that he kerries on hyar, a-body would s'pose he air older 'n the Cumberland Mountings! But he hev turned twenty- one--that's a fac'--an' he voted at the las' election." (With how much discretion it need not now be inquired.) "I knows that air true," said Birt, who had wistfully admired this feat of his senior. "Waal--Nate don't set much store by votin'," rejoined Mrs. Griggs. "Nate, he say, the greatest privilege his kentry kin confer on him is ter make it capital punishment fur wimmen ter ax him questions!-- Which I hev done," she admitted stoutly. And the ruffle on her cap did not deny it. "Nate air twenty-one," she reiterated. "An' I s'pose he 'lows ez I hev no call nowadays ter be his mother." "Hain't ye got no guess whar he be gone?" asked Birt, dismayed by this strange new complication.