By and by we got a response:

"Hello!" was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad
band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner
would see "Pap." "Pap" seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate
and into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I
followed.

There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above,
puncheon floor beneath--cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only
furniture-"pap," barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with
a pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around
and above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three
children with yellow hair and bare feet all looking with all their eyes
at the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The
Blight's eyes were brighter than usual--that was the only sign she gave
that she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothing
strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not
see or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.

Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.

"I reckon you hain't had nothin' to eat," she said and disappeared. The
old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees,
the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and
the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the
extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin,
interested me mightily.

"Yer snack's ready," said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs
into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs
were so low that their chins came barely over their plates, and demure
and serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the
usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls
struggled with the rude fare nobly.

After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a
pipe--exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction
probably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong and
fragrant.

The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and
they, in turn, showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the
eighteen-year-old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.

"You got mighty purty black eyes," said the old woman to the Blight,
and not to slight the little sister she added, "An'