aged-looking man whose general aspect suggested that he was
fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred.

"Well, well, well, Washington, my boy, it is good to look at you again.
Sit down, sit down, and make yourself at home. There, now--why, you look
perfectly natural; aging a little, just a little, but you'd have known
him anywhere, wouldn't you, Polly?"

"Oh, yes, Berry, he's just like his pa would have looked if he'd lived.
Dear, dear, where have you dropped from? Let me see, how long is it
since--"

"I should say it's all of fifteen years, Mrs. Sellers."

"Well, well, how time does get away with us. Yes, and oh, the changes
that--"

There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trembling of the lip, the men
waiting reverently for her to get command of herself and go on; but
after a little struggle she turned away, with her apron to her eyes, and
softly disappeared.

"Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thing--dear, dear,
they're all dead but the youngest.

"But banish care, it's no time for it now--on with the dance, let joy be
unconfined is my motto, whether there's any dance to dance; or any joy to
unconfine--you'll be the healthier for it every time,--every time,
Washington--it's my experience, and I've seen a good deal of this world.
Come--where have you disappeared to all these years, and are you from
there, now, or where are you from?"

"I don't quite think you would ever guess, Colonel. Cherokee Strip."

"My land!"

"Sure as you live."

"You can't mean it. Actually living out there?"

"Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it's a pretty strong term
for 'dobies and jackass rabbits, boiled beans and slap-jacks, depression,
withered hopes, poverty in all its varieties--"

"Louise out there?"

"Yes, and the children."

"Out there now?"

"Yes, I couldn't afford to bring them with me."

"Oh, I see,--you had to come--claim against the government. Make
yourself perfectly easy--I'll take care of that."

"But it isn't a claim against the government."

"No? Want to be postmaster? That's all right. Leave it to me. I'll
fix it."

"But it isn't postmaster--you're all astray yet."

"Well, good gracious, Washington, why don't you come out and tell me what
it is? What, do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an old
friend like me, for? Don't you reckon I can keep a se--"

"There's no secret about it--you merely don't give me a chance to--"

"Now l