The young women were
usually attractive and blooming. They insisted on hospitality; and Bob
had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that he stood in no
immediate need of nourishment. The men repaid cultivation. Their ideas
were often faulty because of insufficient basis of knowledge: but, when
untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive,
and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical, could come into
their ken without being mulled over and decided upon. In the field of
their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to reception of
contrary argument or idea they were always eager for new facts. Bob
found himself often held in good-humoured tolerance as a youngster when
he advanced his opinion; but listened to thirstily when he could detail
actual experience or knowledge. The head of the house held patriarchal
sway until the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the
paternal roof for homes of their own. One and all loved the mountains,
though incoherently, and perhaps without full consciousness of the fact.
They were extremely tenacious of personal rights.
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