Billy laughed immoderately. The idea of a little girl's pocket being picked on the road from Rosita down into Wet Mountain Valley was very droll. "Well, Nelly," he said, "you've got a long head o' your own; but I reckon you took a little more pains than you needed to, that time. Nobody's goin' to think o' such a thing as pickin' your pocket here." "Mamma thought it was a very good plan," said Nelly, with an air of dignity; "and I think so too. Men can't tell about women's pockets: pockets in trousers are much harder to get at." At which Billy only laughed the harder; and at night, when he went home and told Lucinda, he had another fit of laughter over it. "To think o' that little mite standin' out to me that I couldn't jedge about women's pockets, pockets in trousers was so different! Oh, Lord!" said Billy, stretching his long legs out on the wooden settee: "I thought I should ha' died. You was right though, Luce, about the men. I'll own up. That child can go from eend to eend o' thet town safe's if she was one o' the Lord's angels in white,--if that's what they wear,--an' wings on her shoulders: only I never did believe much in the wings. But you oughter've seen how the men looked at her. You know she's got a different look about her somehow from most gals: she ain't pretty, but you can't take your eyes off her; an' she's so pretty spoken: that does it, more'n her looks. When we come by the stamp-mill, at noon, the men was all pourin' out; and afore I knew it we was right in the midst on 'em: a runnin' an' cuffin' and tumblin' each other, and not choosin' their words much. Nelly she took right hold o' my hand, but she never said nothin'. "'Hullo, sis,' sez Jake Billings; and he pushed her little sun-bonnet back off her head. I declare I'd a notion to knock him over; but Nelly she looked up at him an' jest laughed a little, and sez she:-- "'Oh, please, sir, don't: you'll make me drop my eggs.' And he looked as ashamed as I ever see a man. And he put her bonnet right back on her head agin, and sez he:-- "'Let me carry 'em: won't ye, sis?' "Ye see she wouldn't let me so much's touch the basket all the way, though I kept askin'. She said she was goin' to carry it always, an' she might as well begin; an' it wan't heavy; but I know 'twas, for all her sayin' 'twan't, heavy, that is, for her little pipes o' arms. "'No, thank you,' said she to Jake: 'Billy wanted to carry them for me; but I wouldn't let him. I like to carry them all the way myself, to see if I can. I'm going to come every week, perhaps twice a week.' "'Be ye?' said Jake. 'Whose little gal are ye, and where do ye live?' "Then I told him all about her folks; and all the rest o' the men they walked along with us 's quiet and steady you wouldn't ha' known 'em; and Jake he took her right into that Swede's house, you know: Jan, the one that boards some o' the hands." "Oh, yes!" said Lucinda; "and Ulrica, his wife's the nicest woman among the whole set."