Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/142

 I know jes what's wrong with him. He hain't got but a little start of a ringbone; an' I kin burn that out an' have 'im cured in a month. Wimmin like you makes a man sick. You hain't got sense to pound sand with all yer books."

"Oh, hain't we though? Well, I hate to think o' the filthy, foul-livin' critters you men'd be if it wa'n't fer us wimmin. You'd go right back to be savages; an' you hain't fur off from it naow."

Hat also considered herself something of a musician, performing by ear on a fiddle handed down from her grandfather, who had been a fiddler and a caller off of dances.

When Jerry and Judith came to live in the neighborhood, Hat was the first to call upon the bride. Life was lonely back in the deep hollow where she and Luke lived, far from even the sound of a passing wagon; and the company of Luke had long since ceased to be stimulating. Last year, too, all the near neighbors had been old people. Hat was glad that somebody young and lively had come to take the place of the doddering old Patton couple who had lived there the year before.

Not many days after the new arrivals had moved in, Hat appeared one afternoon in the dooryard. She was dressed for visiting. She had on a clean pink and white checked frock and the inevitable little white apron. On her head was a starched pink sunbonnet. She was a tremendous creature, both tall and stout, and her skin was coarse. But she looked handsome in a dark, bold, gipsy-like way. Judith, who was neither small nor delicate, looked like a frail blossom beside her.

"Well, if it hain't Hat Wolf!" exclaimed Judith, who was bringing a bucket of water from the cistern. She set the bucket down and hastened to meet her visitor.

"My, but I'm glad you've come to live here, Judy," said Hat, with genuine enthusiasm. "Las' year I got so's I wouldn't come over here no matter haow lonesome I was, 'cause old Aunt Jinny Patton wouldn't do nothing but set an' sigh an' say she knew the Lord was a-goin' to take her soon. Old people is that tiresome. Naow you an' me, when we hain't got