I had heard of him: a mountain buck; very big, very good-looking. He never worked except to make a little corn that he could turn into whiskey. As soon as I saw Evvie I asked her how she had happened to marry Judd. “I was goin’ to the post-office,” she said, “with a letter to Mis’ Waters, tellin’ her to send the money an’ I’d come right on, when I met Judd an’ he walked along the road with me an’ begged me not to send the letter. He said I’d find it hard out there with strange folks who wouldn’t keer nothin’ fer me, an’ I’d better let him look after me right. I was kinder afraid to go so fur from home, an’ Judd--he talked good.” “Where was Cleve?” I asked. “He was over in Asheville workin’. He was goin’ to meet me an’ put me on the Knoxville train. He lost his job, goin’ to the train fer a week. I wrote to tell him I wasn’t comin’, but Judd lost the letter an’ forgot to tell me about it. Cleve got another job though. Anybody’ll give Cleve work.” “And Judd has been as good as his talk, I suppose?” Evvie swung her head to one side as if she forbade it to droop. “It’ll be all right soon as we git to ourse’vs. We’re livin’ with poppie an’ mommie now, an’ they’s so many young-uns at home Judd gits pouty sometimes. I kain’t fix good things to eat where they’s so many, an’ Judd’ll leave the table when he don’t like what’s on it.” Notwithstanding Evvie’s hopes, it was nearly a year before they got to “therse’vs.” Her parents, with a home already overflowing with small, unprofitable humanity, would have sheltered the young pair and their expected baby indefinitely and without a murmur, preferring to break their already bowed backs than breach the highland custom of welcome for all; but Judd was growing restless for his old occupation, and Evvie wanted her baby to be born in her own home. So she said; but I knew that she was frightened, and would have chosen to stay with her mother if she could have given up the hopes she had built on getting Judd to herself. Mrs. Kane, with her heart breaking over Evvie, took what relief she could from the exodus. “I could stand Judd,” she told me, “ef it wasn’t fer his poutin’. The Merlins don’t pout. We git mad and blow off, and that’s all of it. Judd’ll hang on an’ pout till my bones git sore. I was gittin’ so edgy it’s jest as well they’re gone.” I went once to see Evvie after she had moved. There was a trail down the western side of the ridge on which I lived that would bring me to Judd’s cabin at the end of four miles; and there was a wagon-road down the eastern side which would take me eleven miles around the foot of the ridge. I chose the trail and went down alone.