It was supper-time when he arrived, and Uncle Lot being present, there was no chance for Aunt Ailsie to ask the reason of his profound melancholy, which, however, was so noticeable that, when she started to milk after supper, she called to him to go with her. "What in creation's the matter with you, Jeems?" she demanded. "You look like you had seed a hant!" "I've seed worse'n a hant, Aunt Ailsie," he said, with awful solemnity: "I've seed six able-bodied women, not nary one of which is able to milk a cow-brute!" Aunt Ailsie dropped her bucket. "Jeems!" she said, "you know hit hain't the truth!" "Hit's the truth, too," he replied, sternly. "When milking-time come, not nary one of 'em would even try but one,--that air newest and youngest,--and she couldn't squeeze out a drap! And then a leetle chap that was hanging around, he sot down and milked out a bucketful easy as scat!" Aunt Ailsie picked the bucket up, and stood by the bars, speechless. "I never once thought but what every woman on that hill was a able milker," she said at last. "But look-a-here, Jeems, all hope hain't yet gone; they would any or all larn to milk if needcessity come--say if any of 'em was to marry a widow-man!" Jeems shook his head most emphatically. "They wouldn't, neither," he said. "Them women all allowed hit was a man's job, not a woman's, to milk a cow-brute; and one of them head-women said she was aiming to teach all the women-folks in this here country not to milk nary 'nother time theirselves, but to make the men-folks do hit allus." Jeems's voice broke on the utterance of this frightful heresy, and Aunt Ailsie herself was entirely beyond speech. After a long while she recovered herself, and laid down the bars. "Well, hit jest wa'n't to be, Jeems," she said; "hit just wa'n't predestyned for you to get you a fotched-on woman. I don't know but what, if I was you, I'd court that air widow-woman, Cindy Swope. Her six and your nine, with maybe seven or eight more to foller, will be kindly a stumbling-block; but if she can quell both young-uns and cow-brutes, like you say, numbers won't make no p'ticlar difference--you'll still have peace in your home. I reckon hit's the best all round, Jeems; though I feel mighty onreconciled, atter all the big plans I laid for you. You hain't the first man to look furder and fare worse." She threw half a dozen nubbins to Old Pied, sat down on the small three-legged stool, and began to milk, vigorously but pensively. Jeems gazed down upon her, with healing and comfort stealing over every torn and jangled nerve. "Man's job, indeed!" he said to himself, scornfully; "Cindy hain't got no sech crazy notions!" VI DEVIL'S DITTIES