we looked over there, Calliope an' I stopped still. It was
a man.

"If it'd been me, I'd 'a' turned round an' got out. But Calliope was as
brave as two, an' she spoke up.

"'This must be the invalid,' she says, cheerful. 'We hope we see you at
the best.'

"The man stirs some an' looks over at us kind o' eager--he was oldish,
an' the firelight bein' in his eyes, he couldn't see us.

"'It isn't anybody to see me, is it?' he asks.

"At that Calliope steps forward--I remember how she looked in her pretty
gray dress with some light thing over her head, an' her starched white
skirts was rustlin' along under, soundin' so genteel she seemed to me
like strangers do. When he see her, the man made to get up, but he was
too weak for it.

"'Why, yes,' she answers him, 'if you're well enough to see anybody.'

"An' at that the man put his hands on his knees an' leaned sort o'
hunchin' forward.

"'Calliope!' he says.

"It was him, sure enough--Calvert Oldmoxon. Same big, wide-apart,
lonesome eyes an' kind o' crooked frown. His hair was gray, an' so was
his pointed beard, an' he was crool thin. But I'd 'a' known him
anywheres.

"Calliope, she just stood still. But when he reached out his hand, his
lips parted some like a child's an' his eyes lookin' up at her, she went
an' stood near him, by the table, an' she set her basket there an'
leaned down on the handle, like her strength was gone.

"'I never knew it was you here,' she says. 'Nobody knows,' she told him.

"'No,' he says, 'I've done my best they shouldn't know. Up till I got
sick. Since then--I--wanted folks,' he says.

"I kep' back by the door, an' I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was
older than Calliope, but he had a young air. Like you don't have when
you stay in Friendship. An' he seemed to know how to be easy, sick as he
was. An' that ain't like Friendship, either. He an' Calliope had growed
opposite ways, seems though.

"'I'll go now,' says Calliope, not lookin' at him. 'I brought up some
things I baked. I didn't know but they'd taste good to whoever was sick
here.'

"With that he covers one hand over his eyes.

"'No,' he says, 'no, no, Calliope--don't go yet. It's you I come here to
Friendship to see,' he told her.

"'What could you have to say to me?' asks Calliope--dry as a bone in her
voice, but I see her eyes wasn't so dry. Leastwise, it may not have been
her eyes, but it was her look.

"Then he straightens up some. He was still good-lookin