With the advent of the four Turrentine boys festivities had taken on a brighter air, the game became better worth while.

“Wade, you’ve got to fiddle,” cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and soon “Weevily Wheat,” as the twitting tune comes from the country fiddler’s jigging bow, was filling the room.

“I reckon I ought to have asked your ruthers before I took Wade out of the game,” Judith said to Huldah Spiller as they joined hands to begin.

“Like I cared!” retorted Huldah, tossing her red head till the curls bobbed. She was wearing the new blue lawn dress, made by a real store pattern cut out of tissue paper, and was supremely conscious of looking her best.

The Lusk girls in spotted calico frocks, the dots whereof were pink on Cliantha’s dress, and blue on Pendrilla’s, had bridled and glanced about shamefaced when Andy and Jeff came in; they now “balanced” demurely with down dropped eyes as the game moved to the music.

Judith had left the supper preparations with the elder women, pieced out by the assistance of old Dilsey Rust, and was most active in the games. In the white muslin, washed and ironed by her own skilful, capable fingers, with the blue bow confining the heavy chestnut braids at the nape of her neck, her dark beauty glowed richly. Now the players shifted to “Drop the Handkerchief.” Judith delighted in this game because, fleeter of foot, quicker of hand and eye than the others, she continually disappointed any daring swain who thought to have a kiss from her. Her shining eyes were ever on the doorway, till Blatch Turrentine left his seat at the back of the room and elected to lounge there watching the play with the tolerant air of a man contemplating the sports of children. It apparently gave him satisfaction that Judith time after time eluded a pursuer, broke into the ring and left him to wander in search of a less alert and resolute fair.

“Cain’t none of the boys kiss yo’ gal,” panted Huldah Spiller, pausing beside him. “I doubt mightily ef ye could do it yo’self ’less’n she had a mind to let ye’.”

Judith heard, and the carmine on her cheek deepened and spread, while the dark eyes above gleamed angrily.

“Come on and play, Blatch,” called Wade, jigging away valiantly at his fiddle. “We all know who it is you want to kiss—most of us is bettin’ that you’re scared to try.”

“Play!” echoed Blatchley in a contemptuous tone. “I say play! When I want to buss a gal, I walk up and take my ruthers—like this.”

Again that daunting panther quickness of movement from the big slouching figure; the powerful lines seemed to melt and flow as he flung himself in Judith’s direction, and cast one arm firmly about her in such a way that it pinioned both her elbows to her side.

“You turn me a-loose!” she cried, even as Little Buck had cried. “That ain’t fair. I wasn’t ready for ye, ’caze ye said ye wouldn’t play. You turn me a-loose or ye’ll wish ye had.”

“No fair—no fair!” came the cries from the boys in the ring. “Either you stay out or come in. Jude’s right.”

“Well, some of ye put me out,” suggested Blatchley, significantly. He had brought a jug of moonshine whiskey over from the still and it was flowing freely, though unknown to Old Jephthah, in the loft where most of his possessions were kept.

No man moved to lay finger on him. He held Judith—scarlet of face and almost in tears—by her elbows, and lowered his mocking countenance to within a few inches of her angry eyes.

“Now kiss me pretty, and kiss me all yo’self. I ain’t got nothin’ to do with this; hit’s yo’ play. You been wantin’ to git a chance to kiss me this long while,” he asserted with derisive humour. “Don’t you hold off becaze the others is here; that ain’t the way you do when we’re—”

“Wade—Jim Cal! Won’t some o’ you boys pull this fool man away,” appealed Judith. “I wish somebody’d call Uncle Jep. You can hold yo’ ugly old face there till yo’ hair turns grey,” she suddenly and furiously addressed her admirer. “I’ll never kiss ye.”

“Oh, yes you will—you always do,” Blatchley maintained. “Ef I was to tell the folks how blame lovin’ ye are when jest you and me is alone together——”

He looked over his shoulder to enjoy the triumph of the moment. Blatchley Turrentine’s delight was to traverse the will of every other human being with his own preference. Judith’s gaze, tormented, tear-blurred, followed his and saw across the shoulders of the others, the shine of Creed Bonbright’s fair hair, in the doorway. The sight brought from her an inarticulate cry. It fired Blatchley to take the kiss which he had vowed should be given him. As he bent to do so, Creed stepped forward and laid a hand upon his shoulder. The movement was absolutely pacific, but the fingers closed with a viselike grip, and there was so sharp a backward jerk that the proffered salute was not delivered.

In the surprise of the moment Judith pulled herself free and stood at bay. For an instant the two men looked into each other’s eyes. Creed’s blue orbs were calm, impersonal, and without one hint of yielding or fear.

“If you don’t play fair,” he said in argumentative tone, “there’s no use playing at all. Let’s close up the ring and try it again.”

All eyes in the room turned to Blatchley Turrentine, the women in a flutter of terrified apprehension, the men with a brightening of interest; surely he would resent this interference in some notable manner. But Blatch was in fact too deadly to be merely high-tempered, quick in anger. For a moment he stared at Bonbright, trying to look him down; then those odd, whitey-grey eyes narrowed to mere slits. He laid the matter up in his mind; this was not the time for settling it—here before Judith Barrier and the women. He did not mean to content himself with mere fisticuffs, or even a chance pocket-knife which might double in his grasp and cut his own hand. To the immense surprise of everybody he stretched out his long arms, caught carelessly at the fingers of a player on either side of him, and, mending the line, began to move in rhythmic time to the fiddle.

It was soon observable that Creed Bonbright’s presence caused Huldah Spiller’s spirits to mount several notes in the octave. Whether it was that her own betrothed was looking on, and this an excellent chance to show him that even the town feller felt her charm, or merely Creed’s personal attractions could hardly be guessed.

“Come on,” she cried recklessly, “let’s play ‘Over the River to Feed my Sheep.’ Strike up the tune, Wade.”

The game she mentioned was also a forfeit play, with the difference that the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice—though delivered, of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting—whenever the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith’s heart lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it; and now Huldah Spiller was blatantly calling out the unconfessed, the unconfessable; Wade was sullenly dropping into the old Scotch air; the long lines were forming, men opposite the girls—and the red-headed minx had placed herself directly across from Creed!

The laughing chains swayed back and forth to the measure of the music—advancing, retreating, pursuing, evading, choosing, rejecting, in a gay parody of courtship. Voices were added to that of the fiddle.

they sang.

Shadows crouched in the corners, flickering, dancing, threatening to come out and play, then shrinking back as the blaze leaped and the room widened. The rough brown walls took the shine and broidered themselves with a thread of golden tracery. In such an illumination the eyes shone with added luster, flying locks were all hyacinthine, the frocks might have been silks and satins.

In the movement of the game girls and boys divided. The girls tossed beribboned heads in unwonted coquetry, yet showed always, in downcast eyes and the modest management of light draperies, the mountain ideal of maidenhood. Across from them the line of youthful masculinity swayed; tall, lean, brown-faced, keen-eyed young hunters these, sinewy and light and quick of movement, with fine hands and feet, and a lazy pride of bearing. A very different type from that found in the lowlands, or in ordinary rustic communities.

Judith noted the other players not at all; her hot reprehending eyes were on the girl in the blue dress. She did not observe that she herself was dancing opposite Andy, while Pendrilla Lusk dragged with drooping head in the line across from the amiably grinning Doss Provine. Finding herself suddenly in the lead and successful, Huldah began to preen her feathers a bit. She withdrew a hand from the girl on her right to arrange the small string of blue glass beads around her neck.

“Jest ketch to my skirt for a minute,” she whispered loudly. “I reckon hit won’t rip, though most of ’em is ‘stitches taken for a friend’—I was that anxious to get it done for the party. Oh, Law!”

And then—nobody knew how it happened—she was over the line, her hold on the hands of her mates broken, she had tripped and fallen in a giggling blue lawn heap fairly at Bonbright’s feet. He was in a position where the least gallant must offer the salute the game demanded, but to make assurance doubly sure Huldah put out her hands like a three-year-old, crying,

“He’p me up, Creed, I b’lieve I’ve sprained my ankle.”

The young fellow from Hepzibah was in a mood for play. After all he was only a big boy, and he had been long barred out from young people’s frolics. Here was a gay, toward little soul, who seemed to like him. He stooped and caught her by the waist, picking her up as one might a small child, and holding her a moment with her feet off the floor. Something in the laughing challenge of her face as she protested and begged to be put down prompted him as to what was expected. He kissed her lightly upon the cheek before he released her.

As he set her down he encountered Wade Turrentine’s eye. A spark of tawny fire had leaped to life in its hazel depth. The fiddler still clung faithfully to his office. If he missed a note now and again, or played off key, he might be forgiven. It is to be remembered that he sawed away without a moment’s pause throughout the entire episode.

Creed reached out to join the broken line and touched Jeff’s arm. The boy flung away from the contact with a muttered word. He looked helplessly at Judith, but she would not glance at him; head haughtily erect, long lashes on crimson cheeks, red lip curled to an expression of offence and disdain, the young hostess mended the line by joining the hands of the two girls on each side of her.

“You-all can go on playin’ without me,” she said in a constrained tone. “I got to see to something in the other room.”

“See here, Mister Man,” remarked Blatch, as Judith prepared to leave. “You’re mighty free and permisc’ous makin’ rules for kissin’ games, but I take notice you don’t follow none of ’em yo’se’f.”

Judith halted uncertainly. To stop and defend Creed was out of the question. She was about to interpose with the general accusation that Blatch was trying to pick a fuss and break up her play-party, when Iley’s voice, for once a welcome interruption, broke in from the doorway.

“Jude, we ain’t got plates enough for everybody an’ to put the biscuit on,” called Jim Cal’s wife. “Ax Creed Bonbright could we borry a few from his house.”

Judith closed instantly with the diversion. She moved quickly toward the door; Bonbright joined her.

“Why yes,” he said. “You know I told you to help yourself. Let me go over now and get what you want. Is there anything else?”

“That’s mighty kind of you, Creed,” Judith thanked him. “I reckon I better go along with ye and see. I don’t think of anything else just now. Iley, we’ll be back quick as we can with all the plates ye need.”

Together they stepped out into the soft dusk of the summer night, followed by the narrowed gaze of Blatch Turrentine’s grey eyes.