John and Eck Davis had collected logs and chunks and spread robes and blankets until the seating capacity of the camp was nearly equal to that of George’s Chapel. Some of the girls took off their wraps and hung them in the bark house. One couple carried away a bucket for more sugar-water to cool a kettle, and other couples sauntered after them. There were races on the spongy dead leaves, and sudden squalls of remonstrance. Jane Davis stood in the midst of her company, moving a long wooden stirrer in the kettle about to sugar-off. Though her beauty was neither brown nor white, nor, in fact, positive beauty of any kind, it cajoled everybody. Her hair was folded close to her cheeks. There was innocent audacity in the curving line of every motion she made. The young men were so taken by the spell of her grace that she was accused of being unrighteously engaged to three at once, and about to add her cousin Tom Randall to the list. Tom Randall was a Virginian, spending the winter in Ohio. He was handsome, merry as Mercutio, and so easy in his manners that the Swamp youths watched him with varying emotions. He brought his songs over the mountains: one celebrated the swiftness of the electric telegraph in flashing news from Baltimore to Wheeling; another was about a Quaker courtship, and set all the Swamp girls to rattling the lady’s brisk response,-- “What care I for your rings or money,-- Faddle-a-ding, a-ding, a-day; I want a man that will call me honey,-- Faddle-a-ding, a-ding, a-day!” Tom Randall sat close to the fire, hanging his delicate hands, which had never done a day’s chopping, over his knees. He looked much of a gentleman, Nora Waddell remarked aside to Philip Welchammer. To all the girls he was a central figure, as Jane was a central figure to the young men. But Philip claimed that Virginians were no nearer perfection than out-and-out Swamp fellows. “I didn’t say he was a perfect gentleman,” said Nora, with cautious moderation, “for I wouldn’t say so of any man.” “He ain’t proud,” admitted Philip. “He’s free to talk with everybody.” “Humph!” remarked Mary Thompson, sitting at the other side of Philip; “he ought to be. Folks in Georger Chapel neighborhood is just as good as anybody.” “Well, anyhow, I know he ain’t a prettier dancer than Jane,” sighed Nora, whose folks would not allow her to indulge in the godless motion which the music of a fiddle inspires. While Jane stirred and chatted, she was swaying and taking dance-steps, as if unable to refrain from spinning away through the trees. In this great woods drawing-room, where so many were gathered, it was impossible for her to hear any comment that went on. “Jane makes a good appearance on the floor,” responded Philip, who, being male, could withstand the general denunciations of the preacher and his mother’s praying at him in meeting. “I like to lead her out to dance.”