“I ain’t goin’ to let her git married ’fore she’s fifteen,” the mother assured me. “Not if I can he’p it. Ef she had some work to keep her mind on----” “I’ve a friend,” I said, as I stepped between Mrs. Kane and my typewriter, “who would like a helper with her children. It would be a good home for Evvie and she would have nothing to do but play.” “You mean anybody’d pay her jest fer playin’?” “With children. And Evvie is fine with her little brothers and sisters.” (I’ll _make_ Sue Waters take her, said I to myself.) “Where’d the place be?” “It’s on a big farm near Knoxville.” “It’ll cost a heap to go, an’ we ain’t got nary calf we can sell now.” “My friend will send the money for her fare, and Evvie can pay it back if she stays.” Mrs. Kane, thin and worn, threw up her head with almost as fine an air as Evvie herself. “Ef she don’t stay, I’ll pay it back ef it takes ever’ egg fer a year,” she said. We thought it settled; but before I could sufficiently browbeat Sue Waters, Evvie’s mother came to me with a face grayer and more pinched than ever. “I reckon,” she said, “Evvie kain’t go till next year. I shore thought I was through with babies, but there’s another acomin’, an’ Evvie’s all the he’p I’ve got.” Now, during preparations for Evvie’s setting forth, I had seen more of her than usual, and had detected signs of a quick temper that gave me uneasy visions of her amid the Waters brood. Also I feared that her ideas of _fraternité et égalité_, which were as natural to her as the ground under her feet, might give some trouble. If little Margaret Waters should receive a piano for her birthday, Evvie would expect the same or “just as good.” Sue Waters, having taken her degree in the right subjects, would of course comprehend, but could hardly supply the piano. My relief was almost as deep as my concern when Mrs. Kane made her joyless announcement. “Perhaps it is better to wait,” said I. “Evvie will be older and larger by a year.” “I dunno as that’s better,” said the mother. “She’s a woman to the bone, an’ a year’ll seem a long time.” Before the year was half out I left the mountains and was gone for several months. As soon as conditions in the Kane home permitted, I arranged by correspondence for Evvie’s going away. She was to write to Mrs. Waters when she was ready, and the money for her fare would be sent to her. As the train taking me home pulled into the village, I thought of Evvie, supposing her to be with Mrs. Waters, and I felt that I had helped to rob the hills of a flower that should belong to them utterly. A woman sharing my seat had been giving me the news. I did not hear much of it, but finally caught the words “An’ Evvie got married.” I jumped unmannerly, as if I would snatch the child to dry land. Then I made my conscience comfortable. “Cleve will take good care of her,” I said. “’Tain’t Cleve,” replied the woman. “It’s that young feller from Mossy Creek--Judd Mason.” II