She raised her head as the boards creaked under the stealthy tread of the twins. “He done it!” she cried brokenly, the tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. “Gabe done it. I seen ’em ez I wuz comin’ up the hil frum the spring—him an’ that thar Bozeman boy er ridin’ off—but I didn’t know ez ’twuz yer Gran’pap’s hat the boy wuz er wearin’ ’tel I got here an’ seen it wuz gone, an’ then I knowed it hed looked pow’rful familiar. But what did he do it fer? What did he do it fer?” her voice rose into a little wail and her bent form shook with painful sobbing. Bet stared at her, dumb; her round eyes filled with responsive tears which she wiped away with the corner of her dress. “Did he tell yer?” asked Liz. “He’s gone ter git married.” Mrs. Freeler sank weakly into a chair, and her hands fell limp in front of her. “I knowed ’twuz comin’,” she said, “but I ’lowed ez how he’d tell me. He ain’t never married yet ’thout tellin’ me.” “He never had time, I reck’n,” said the girl, and then recounted the incident of the coat and the letter; the coming of the Bozeman boy and the reading of the letter, the contents of which were fully detailed; and, finally, the circumstance which had led to the taking of the hat. The old woman interrupted her not at all, only when she came to the mention of the hat, wiped her tears again with shaking hand. Then they sat in silence, drifting after a while into desultory talk, as other occasions like this came back to memory. “I rickerleck,” said the grandmother, “when he brought yer ma home. It was jes’ this time o’ year. She wuz the likeliest one of ’em all—I knowed the minute I set eyes on her she’d do. The fust one wuz a peart enough young thing, too, but she whirled in an’ died that very summer, an’ in two months he married yer ma. You know how long it’s ben sence the las’ one was tuk. Well, Gabe never did lose no time!” The sun’s rays grew less strong; she rose mechanically. “Git up some light-’ood knots,” she said, as she gathered her milk pail. “They’ll be late gittin’ here, an’ the nights is growin’ chilly. I’ll set up fer ’em an’ have a blaze in the chimley, an’ some supper ready—he allus wants sumpin’ hot when he comes in late.”