a plenty 'n' to spare, though there's lots o' likely women
folks round here that never hed one chance, let alone four.
Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her father
hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin'
but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn out;
if he 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him.
_In_fidelity would 'a' ben a mighty sight more 'propriate; but either
of 'em is too long fer a name, so they got to callin' her Fiddy.
Wall, Fiddy didn't waste no time; she was nigh onto eighteen years
old when Dixie went there to board, 'n' she begun huneyfuglin'
him's soon as ever she set eyes on him. Folks warned him,
but 't wa'n't no use; he was kind o' bewitched with her from the first.
She wa'n't so han'some, neither. Blamed 'f I know how they do it;
let 'em alone, 'f yer know when yer 're well off, 's my motter.
She was red-headed, but her hair become her somehow when she curled
'n' frizzed it over a karosene lamp, 'n' then wound it round 'n'
round her head like ropes o' carnelian. She hedn't any particular
kind of a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry! when she looked at yer,
yer felt kind as if yer was turnin' to putty inside."

"I know what yer mean," said Steve interestedly.

"She hed a figger jest like them fashion-paper pictures you
've seen, an' the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy
Maddox would hev 'em before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n'
the highest hats 'n' the tightest skirts 'n' the longest tails
to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow, anyhow! Dixie wa'n't out o'
money when he come here, an' a spell afterwards there was
more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his father's
folks down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you!