“Yes, you will want to fight 'im, an' then we'll have no roof over us at all,” Amanda said, with a smile designed to soften her own disappointment as well as his. “I tell you, Jeff, we've got to make the best of it an' be thankful. We'll have decent neighbors, I'll bet. Look at that nice house right in our yard.” “That's it,” Jeff thundered. “Mayburn wrote me this shack was all the house he had, an' that one is his, an' is empty. He insulted me by sizin' me up that way before I even got here.” “Well, he'd have insulted hisse'f by puttin' us in it without the money to pay for it.” Amanda had no intention of adding fuel to her brother-in-law's wrath. “A fine house like that would be worth fifteen dollars a month at the lowest. You better not tackle 'im about it; he might offer it to us cash in advance--then I'd like to know what we'd do. You said this momin' that we'd have to buy our first groceries on a credit. Jeff, yore pride has been yore drawback long enough; you've got to smother it or it will smother you. Now pick up that door an' hang it some way or other. I won't sleep in a house that can't be shut up at night.” Warren, quite beside himself in disappointment and ill-humor, replaced the shutter and then went to work unloading the furniture. He soon had it all within. Then he announced that he must leave them, to go up to the Square to buy the supplies of food they needed. The two sisters had finished all that was to be done in the cabin, and were out in the desolate yard waiting for Warren to return. “I see 'im,” Amanda cried. “He's comin' through the broom-sedge. He's took that way to keep from passin' Abe Langston's an' havin' to say howdy, He'll have to git over that or we'll never git along. He's got to take his medicine. The Lord's hard on 'im, but Jeff never was much of a Lord's man. It's the meek an' humble that the Lord favors, an' Jeff kicks ag'in' the pricks too much. Nothin' but a strong coffin an' plenty o' earth on top of it will ever humble that man.” “He walks like he's bothered about something.” Mrs. Warren sighed, her slow gaze following her approaching husband's bowed form as he trudged through the thickening twilight. “Do you suppose they have refused to credit him?” “I reckon not, for I see a bag o' something under his arm; but he's upset--you kin depend on it. He knows we are hungry, an' he'd strike a livelier gait than that if he wasn't mad as Tucker.” As Jeff drew near they moved forward to meet him. “Did you git anything to eat? That's what I want to know,” Amanda said, with her usual disregard of even the darkest of his moods. It was as if he were going to make no response; but her eager hands were on the tow bag under his arm, and he sullenly answered in the affirmative. “Smoked bacon.” She winked cheerfully at her sister. “I smell it. Sugar-cured in the bargain. Coffee, too, already parched an' ground. I'd know that a mile off if the wind wras in the right direction. I'm glad I put on the kettle.”