Something snapped like a toy-pistol and Bub howled. A little brown
hand had whacked him across the mouth, and the girl flashed
indoors without a word. Bub got to his feet howling with pain and
rage and started after her, but the old man caught him:

"Set down, boy! Sarved you right fer blabbin' things that hain't
yo' business." He shook with laughter.

Jealousy! Great heavens--Hale thought--in that child, and for him!

"I knowed she was cryin' 'bout something like that. She sets a
great store by you, an' she's studied them books you sent her
plum' to pieces while you was away. She ain't nothin' but a baby,
but in sartain ways she's as old as her mother was when she died."
The amazing secret was out, and the little girl appeared no more
until supper time, when she waited on the table, but at no time
would she look at Hale or speak to him again. For a while the two
men sat on the porch talking of the feud and the Gap and the coal
on the old man's place, and Hale had no trouble getting an option
for a year on the old man's land. Just as dusk was setting he got
his horse.

"You'd better stay all night."

"No, I'll have to get along."

The little girl did not appear to tell him goodby, and when he
went to his horse at the gate, he called:

"Tell June to come down here. I've got something for her."