her to her face, but she's too excitable. She got all skitterish just because I tried...."

"And who wouldn't get skitterish," Toffee snapped, "with old gophers leering out of the bushes, trying to squeeze them? It's enough to unbalance anyone."

"I didn't try to squeeze you, lady," the old man retorted with unexpected heat. "And I didn't leer neither."

Anger suddenly flared in Toffee's green eyes. "Don't you try to deny it, you old hayseed!" she yelled. "I remember every word you said."

Marc rushed into the breach. "Stop this wrangling," he commanded. "Let's get to the bottom of this thing." He turned to the old man. "Did you or did you not try to ... ah ... squeeze this young lady?"

"At my age?" the old man asked forlornly. "What do you think? I just came down here to sell you folks some corn squeezin's. I didn't know it was goin' to make all this trouble. Now I just want to forget the whole thing and go away. I think I'll go into the hog business."

"Corn squeezings?" Marc asked. "What's that?"

"It's a kind of likker," the old man said uninterestedly, as though it really didn't matter any more. "I make it myself. I got a still up yonder on the mountain. Right now I'm goin' up there and lay into the damn thing with a sledge hammer."

"Oh," Toffee breathed embarrassedly. "So that's all it was!" She reached a hand to Marc's sleeve. "Maybe we ought to buy some of his ..." she shied away from the word, "that stuff. Just to make it up to him. It seems the least we can do."

Marc nodded and turned to the old man. "Don't take it so hard, old timer," he said sympathetically. "You just made a sale the hard way."

It was some time before Marc and Toffee emerged from the woods and started down the hill toward the car. Leaving the shadows of the great pines, they stepped into a path of shimmering bright moonlight. Over one shoulder, Marc carried an old-fashioned jug, and his face had rather a wooden look about it, though it was set in a blissful smile. Toffee moved loose-jointedly along at his side, softly singing a song about a girl named Lil who had suffered a rather devastating fall from grace at a shockingly early age. They moved lightly and silently down the hillside like a pair of enchanted shadows. It was just as they were approaching the car that Marc suddenly stopped and grasped Toffee's arm.

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