Mrs. Griggs nodded her head capably, in nowise dismayed.  “I dunno but that plan would work mighty well,” she said.

This conjugal colloquy terminated as she glanced up and saw Birt.

“Why, thar’s young Dicey a-hint ye.  Howdy Birt!  ‘Light an’ hitch!”

“Naw’m,” rejoined Birt, as he rode into the enclosure and close up to the doorstep.  “I hain’t got time ter ’light.”  Then precipitately opening the subject of his mission.  “I kem over hyar ter see Nate.  Whar hev he disappeared ter?”

“Waal, now, that’s jes’ what I’d like ter know,” she replied, her face eloquent with baffled curiosity.  “He jes’ borried his dad’s claybank mare, an’ sot out, an’ never ’lowed whar he war bound fur.  Nate hev turned twenty-one year old,” she continued, “an’ he ’lows he air a man growed, an’ obligated ter obey nobody but hisself.  From the headin’ way that he kerries on hyar, a-body would s’pose he air older ’n the Cumberland Mountings!  But he hev turned twenty-one—­that’s a fac’—­an’ he voted at the las’ election.”

(With how much discretion it need not now be inquired.)

“I knows that air true,” said Birt, who had wistfully admired this feat of his senior.

“Waal—­Nate don’t set much store by votin’,” rejoined Mrs. Griggs.  “Nate, he say, the greatest privilege his kentry kin confer on him is ter make it capital punishment fur wimmen ter ax him questions!—­ Which I hev done,” she admitted stoutly.

And the ruffle on her cap did not deny it.

“Nate air twenty-one,” she reiterated.  “An’ I s’pose he ’lows ez I hev no call nowadays ter be his mother.”

“Hain’t ye got no guess whar he be gone?” asked Birt, dismayed by this strange new complication.

“Waal, I hev been studyin’ it out ez Nate mought hev rid ter Parch Corn, whar his great-uncle, Joshua Peters, lives—­him that merried my aunt, Melissy Baker, ez war a widder then, though born a Scruggs.  An’ then, ag’in, Nate mought hev tuk it inter his head ter go ter the Cross-roads, a-courtin’ a gal thar ez he hev been talkin’ about powerful, lately.  But they tells me,” Mrs. Griggs expostulated, as it were, “that them gals at the Cross-roads is in no way desirable,- -specially this hyar Elviry Mills, ez mighty nigh all the boys on the mounting hev los’ thar wits about,—­what little wits ez they ever hed ter lose, I mean ter say.  But Nate thinks he hev got a right ter a ch’ice, bein’ ez he air turned twenty-one.”

“Did he say when he ’lowed ter come back?” Birt asked.

“’Bout two or three weeks Nate laid off ter be away; but whar he hev gone, an’ what’s his yerrand, he let no human know,” returned Mrs. Griggs.  “I hev been powerful aggervated ‘bout this caper o’ Nate’s.  I ain’t afeard he’ll git hisself hurt no ways whilst he be gone, for Nate is mighty apt ter take keer o’ Nate.”  She nodded her head convincingly, and the great ruffle on her cap shook in corroboration.  “But I hain’t never hed the right medjure o’ respec’ out’n Nate, an’ his dad hain’t, nuther.”