They each took another long pull at the bottle and then drove for some time in silence.
"Is she dark or fair, Jerry?" asked Jabez out of the silence.
"She's dark," admitted Jerry, the mellowing influence of the whiskey beginning to overcome his boyish bashfulness and natural taciturnity. "But her skin hain't dark. On'y her eyes an' hair is dark. Her skin is all creamy colored an' her cheeks is pink like brier roses. No, not like brier roses--a pinker pink--more like peach blossoms."
"Huh," grunted Jabez thoughtfully. "'Tain't Judy Pippinger, is it?"
"Yump." Then after a pause, "Would yuh say Judy Pippinger was a harlot?" Jerry looked belligerently at Jabez.
The older man was too surprised by the question even to notice the young fellow's attitude of challenge. He gave a start of shocked astonishment.
"A harlot! My gawd no, Jerry. Judy Pippinger hain't but a little gal! I allus liked that little gal. She seems more like a boy. It's on'y lately she's begun to know she's a gal an' not a boy. Too bad she hain't a boy."
"Waal, haow's the courtin' a-comin' on?" he asked at last. "Is the day set yet?"
Jerry's face assumed an expression of sullen disgruntlement. Jabez looked at him keenly out of the corner of his eye.
Both men had another drink, and there fell another long period of silence.
"Where's the hitch, Jerry?" asked Jabez at last.
By this time the whiskey had thoroughly warmed Jerry through and through. The landscape was beginning to look blurred and far away; and he felt shut in with Jabez in a warm atmosphere of congeniality and comradeship. He began, haltingly at first, to tell his friend his troubles. Gradually his trickle of speech flowed more freely; then burst suddenly forth, like a stream that has broken a dam, and rushed in a torrent of picturesque curses on the head of Dick Whitmarsh.
Jabez laughed the loud, carefree laugh of inebriation.
"Why, Jerry, you bin a heap too backward," he cried, slapping his friend on the back till Jerry winced, "an' Dick Whitmarsh has sure got the start of you naow. The on'y thing fer you to do is to come up on him from another d'rection an' s'prise the enemy when he hain't a-lookin' fer yuh. Not all the courtin' is done in buggies, Jerry; though a feller born an' bred in Scott County might think so. It don't have to be done in buggies. An' Judy Pippinger 'specially hain't a gal to be courted in a buggy. You go to meetin' her accidentally when she's a-drivin' up the caows or a-stalkin' them turkeys over the hills an' hollers, an' I'll bet you'll ketch up with Dick in no time, even if he has got a head start. If yuh must go a-courtin', as I s'pose yuh must, yuh might as well go in fer to win. Good luck, Jerry!"