"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added, "none the better for seeing you." "I jest had to run over and see how you was standin' it," Huldah pursued vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn't you?" "What for?" inquired Judith angrily. "Oh--I don't know. I'm jest thataway. Git me started an' thar's no stoppin' me. But then I've knowed Creed so mighty long--him an' me was powerful good friends, and my feelin's is more tenderer than some folks's anyhow." "Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the other jump, "ef you'll jest walk yo'self out of here I'll be obliged to you. I've stood all I can. I don't want to say anything plumb bad to you, but ef you set thar an' talk to me like that for another minute I will." "Oh, you po' thing!" cried Huldah, jumping to her feet. "I declare to goodness I forgot all about you an' Blatch. Here I've been carryin' on over Creed Bonbright--and you mighty near a widder. You po' thing!" Judith faced around with such blazing eyes from the biscuits she was moulding that Huldah beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and ran up the slope. At Jim Cal's cabin she paused and looked about her uncertainly. Iley had the toothache, and for various reasons was proving a poor audience for her younger sister's conversation. The day had been a trying one to Huldah's excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the explosions of the night before. It was five o'clock. The men were all over at the old place. If she but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why, the whole top of the Bald above Foeman's Bluff, and the broad shelf below it, were covered with huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which she was wrapping in a wet cloth with ten drops of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the same to her cheek above the swollen tooth. "Ef you say 'Creed Bonbright'--or 'kill'--or 'Blatch Turrentine,'--to me, I vow I'll hit ye," she warned shrilly. "I ain't never raised hand on ye yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it I will!" "I wasn't goin' to say nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and git a pail to pick some." She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she spoke, and Iley's silence presumably assenting, within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly on the Bald above the bluff. Below her stretched meadows drunk with sun--breathless. A rain crow called from time to time "C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!" The air was still heavy with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished with heat. "I wonder where in all creation them boys has got theirselves to," she ruminated as she peered about, dragging green berries and leaves into her bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would afterward no doubt scold her soundly. "'Pears to me like I hearn somebody talkin' somewhars."