It'll be mighty nice for Sammy, marryin' Ollie, but we'll miss her awful; the whole country will miss her, too.

She's just the life of the neighborhood, and everybody 'lows there never was another girl like her.

Poor child, she ain't had no mother since she was a little trick, and she has always come to me for everything like, us bein' such close neighbors, and all.

But law! sir, I ain't a blamin' her a mite for goin', with her Daddy a runnin' with that ornery Wash Gibbs the way he does." Again the man felt called upon to express his interest; "Is Mr.
Lane in business with this man Gibbs ?" "Law, no! that is, don't nobody know about any business; I reckon it's all on account of those old Bald Knobbers; they used to hold their meetin's on top of Dewey yonder, and folks do say a man was burned there once, because he told some of their secrets.

Well, Jim and Wash's daddy, and Wash, all belonged, 'though Wash himself wasn't much more than a boy then; and when the government broke up the gang, old man Gibbs was killed, and Jim went to Texas.