"Which way?" asked Gilbert.

"Your'n, as far as you go,--always providin' you takes me."

"Of course, Deborah, you're welcome. I have no load, you see."

"Mighty clever in you, Mr. Gilbert; but you always was one o' the clever
ones. Them as thinks themselves better born"--

"Come, Deborah, none of that!" he exclaimed.

"Ax your pardon," she said, and smoked her pipe in silence. When she had
finished and knocked the ashes out against the front panel of the wagon,
she spoke again, in a hard, bitter voice,--

"'Tisn't much difference what _I_ am. I was raised on hard knocks, and
now I must git my livin' by 'em. But I axes no'un's help, I'm _that_
proud, anyways. I go my own road, and a straighter one, too, damme, than
I git credit for, but I let other people go their'n. You might have wuss
company than me, though _I_ say it."

These words hinted at an inward experience in some respects so
surprisingly like his own, that Gilbert was startled. He knew the
reputation of the woman, though he would have found it difficult to tell
whereupon it was based. Everybody said she was bad, and nobody knew
particularly why. She lived alone, in a log-cabin in the woods; did
washing and house-cleaning; worked in the harvest-fields; smoked, and
took her gill of whiskey with the best of them,--but other vices, though
inferred, were not proven. Involuntarily, he contrasted her position, in