CHAPTER XVII
LONG JERRY'S STORY
"Ol' man Bennett," began Jerry Todd, "warn't a native of this neck o' woods. He come up from Jarsey, or some such place, and bringed his fam'bly with him, and Sally Bennett. She was his sister, and as he was a pretty upstandin' man, so was she a tall, well-built gal. She sartain made a hit up here around Scarboro and along Rollin' River.
"But she wasn't backwoods bred, and the other girls said she was timid and afraid of her shadder," chuckled Long Jerry. "She warn't afraid of the boys, and mebbe that's why the other gals said sharp things about her," pursued the philosophical backwoodsman. "You misses know more about that than I do—sure!
"Howsomever, come the second spring the Bennetts had been up here, Mis' Bennett, old Bill's wife, was called down to see her ma, that was sick, they said, and that left Miss Sally to keep house. Come the first Saturday thereafter and Bennett, he had to go to Scarboro to mill.
"You know jest how lonesome it is up here
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