"No, sir, I shall not make nor meddle," Grandfather Gentry told the preacher, as he stood finally at the roadside, looking up at that worthy mounted on his mule for departure. "Callista is [315] my only grandchild, and I've always thought a heap of her. She is welcome in my house. If she had done worse, I should still be willing to roof her; but I reckon it's best to tell you here and now, Mr. Drumright, that I have no quarrel with Lance Cleaverage, and no cause to meddle in his affairs. I take him to be a good deal like I was at his age--sort o' uneasy when folks come pesterin' around asking questions--and I don't choose to be one of them that goes to him that-a-way." The season wore on toward winter. There was frost, and after it a time of exquisite, mist-haunted Indian summer, the clean, wooded Cumberland highlands swimming in a dream of purple haze, that sense of waiting and listening brooding over all. Then again the days were cold enough to make the fire welcome, even at noon, and Callista piled the hearth in her outside cabin room and set the baby to play before it. She had run down to the chip pile for an apronful of trash to build the blaze higher (the vigorous, capable young creature made light work, these days, of getting her own fuel), when she was aware of two people mounted on one mule stopping at the gate. She paused a moment, shading her eyes with her hand, while Rilly Trigg slid down and Buck Fuson swung himself leisurely to earth. Above the irregular line of the brown-gold trees, beginning to be dingy with the late storms, the [316] sky was high, cloudless, purple-blue. The sweet, keen air lifted Callista's bright hair and tossed it about her face. "Howdy, Callisty. Me and Buck jest stopped apast to say good-bye," Rilly announced, joining her beside the chopping block, and bending to fill her own hands with the great hickory chips. "And where was you and Buck a-goin'?" smiled Callista, after she had greeted the young fellow, who tied his mule and came following the girl over to her. "Buck and me was wedded this morning." Rilly made her announcement with a mantling color, as they all turned in at the cabin door. "We're goin' down to Hepzibah for a spell. Looks like a man cain't git nothin' to do here, and Buck's found work in the Settlement." Callista looked at them with a steady smile. "I hope you-all will be mighty happy," she said in a low tone. Rilly, suddenly overtaken by the embarrassment of making such an announcement to Callista in her present situation, sat down on the floor beside the baby and began to hug him ecstatically. "Ain't he the sweetest thing?" she cried over and over again. "He ain't forgot me. He ain't a bit afraid of me. Last time him an' me was together I had to make up with him mighty careful. I reckon he sees more strangers and more comin' and goin' over here." [317]