necks to see what she had to offer, at
the instant that Sol came around the corner of the house. She all but
let the pan fall in her amazement, and the song was cut off between her
lips in the middle of a word, for it was not more than six o'clock,
uncommonly early for visitors.

"Mercy me, Sol Greening, you give me an awful jump!" said she.

"Well, I didn't aim to," said Sol, turning over in his mind the speech
that he had drawn up in the last uninterrupted stage of his journey
over.

Mrs. Newbolt looked at him sharply, turning her head a little with a
quick, pert movement, not unlike one of her hens.

"Is anybody sick over your way?" she asked.

She could not account for the early visit in any other manner. People
commonly came for her at all hours of the day and night when there was
somebody sick and in need of a herb-wise nurse. She had helped a great
many of the young ones of that community into the world, and she had
eased the pains of many old ones who were quitting it. So she thought
that Greening's visit must have something to do with either life or
death.

"No, nobody just azackly sick," dodged Greening.

"Well, laws my soul, you make a mighty mystery over it! What's the
matter--can't you talk?"

"But I can't say, Missis Newbolt, that everybody's just azackly well,"
said he.

"Some of your folks?"

"No, not none of mine," said Sol.

"Then whose?" she inquired impatiently.

"Isom's," said he.

"You don't mean my Joe?" she asked slowly, a shadow of pain drawing her
face.

"I mean Isom," said Sol.

"Isom?" said she, relieved. "Why didn't Joe come after me?" Before Sol
could adjust his program to meet this unexpected exigency, she demanded:
"Well, what's the matter with Isom?"

"Dead," said Sol, dropping his voice impressively.

"You don't mean--well, shades of mercy, Isom dead! What was
it--cholera-morbus?"

"Killed," said Sol; "shot down with his own gun and killed as dead as a
dornix."

"His own gun! Well, sakes--who done it?"

"Only one man knows," said Sol, shaking his head solemnly. "I'll tell
you how it was."

Sol started away back at the summons to jury service, worked up to the
case in which he and Isom had sat together, followed Isom then along the
road home, and galloped to overtake him. He arrived at his gate--all in
his long and complete narrative--again, as he had done in reality the
night past; he heard the shot in Isom's house; he leaped to the ground;
he ran. He saw