human in their suggestions. The way
was lonely. There was no companionship for her in the whispering sighs
of the tall pines that stood by the roadside, no friendliness in the
constellations that burned and sparkled overhead, no hospitable
suggestion in the lights that gleamed faintly here and there from the
windows of the houses in the little settlement. To Mrs. Stucky all was
commonplace. There was nothing in her surroundings as she went toward
her home, to lend wings even to her superstition, which was eager to
assert itself on all occasions.

It was not much of a home to which she was making her way--a little
log-cabin in a pine thicket, surrounded by a little clearing that served
to show how aimlessly and how hopelessly the lack of thrift and energy
could assert itself. The surroundings were mean enough and squalid
enough at their best, but the oppressive shadows of night made them
meaner and more squalid than they really were. The sun, which shines so
lavishly in that region, appeared to glorify the squalor, showing wild
passion-flowers clambering along the broken-down fence of pine poles,
and a wistaria vine running helter-skelter across the roof of the little
cabin. But the night hid all this completely.

A dim, vague blaze, springing from a few charred pine-knots, made the
darkness visible in the one room of the cabin; and before it, with his
elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, sat what appeared to be a
man. He wore neither coat nor shoes, and his hair was long and shaggy.

"Is that you, Bud?" said Mrs. Stucky.

"Why, who'd you reckon it wuz, maw?" replied Bud, looking up with a
broad grin that was not at all concealed by his thin, sandy beard. "A
body'd sorter think, ef they 'uz ter ketch you gwine on that away, that
you 'spected ter find some great somebody er nuther a-roostin' in here."

Mrs. Stucky, by way of responding, stirred the pine-knots until they
gave forth a more satisfactory light, hung her bonnet on the bedpost,
and seated herself wearily in a rickety chair, the loose planks of the
floor rattling and shaking as she moved about.

"Now, who in the nation did you reckon it wuz, maw?" persisted Bud,
still grinning placidly.

"Some great somebody," replied Mrs. Stucky, brushing her gray hair out
of her eyes and looking at her son. At this Bud could contain himself no
longer. He laughed almost uproariously.

"Well, the great Jemimy!" he exclaimed, and then laughed louder than
ever.