sleeping child, and again sobs
were shaking her like an ague fit. There was something heartrending in
this silent, wordless anguish; but there was nothing to be said, and Tom
went on making the fire. After a little she sat up and continued
monotonously:

"_He_ was liken to me thataway, too; the Man 'at I heard your Uncle
Silas tellin' about one night when I sot on the doorstep at Little
Zoar--He hadn't no place to lay His'n head; not so much as the red foxes
'r the birds ... and I hain't."

The blaze was racing up the chimney now with a cheerful roar, and Tom
rose to his feet, every good emotion in him stirring to its awakening.

"Such as it is, Nan, this place is yours, for as long as you want to
stay," he said soberly. And then: "You straighten things around here to
suit you, and I'll be back in a little while."

He was gone less than half an hour, but in that short interval he
lighted another fire: a blaze of curiosity and comment to tingle the
ears and loosen the tongues of the circle of loungers in Hargis's store
in Gordonia. He ignored the stove-hugging contingent pointedly while he
was giving his curt orders to the storekeeper; and the contingent
avenged itself when he was out of hearing.

"Te-he!" chuckled Simeon Cantrell the elder, pursing his lips around the
stem of his corn-cob pipe; "looks like Tom-Jeff was goin' to
house-keepin' right late in the evenin'."

"By gol, I wonder what's doin'?" said another. "Reckon he's done tuk up
with Nan Bryerson, afte' all's been said an' done?"

Bastrop Clegg, whose distinction was that of being the oldest loafer in
the circle, spat accurately into the drafthole of the stove, sat back
and tilted his hat over his eyes.

"Well, boys, I reckon hit's erbout time, ain't hit?" he moralized.
"Leetle Tom must be a-goin' awn two year old; and I don't recommember ez
Tom 'r his pappy has ever done a livin' thing for Nan."

Whereupon one member of the group got up and addressed himself to the
door. It was Japheth Pettigrass; and what he said was said to the
starlit night outside.

"My Lord! that ther' boy _was_ lyin' to me, after all! I didn't believe
hit that night when he r'ared and took on so to me and 'lowed to chunk
me with a rock, and I don't want to believe hit now. But Lordy gracious!
hit do look mighty bad, with him a-buyin' all that outfit and loadin'
hit in his pappy's buggy; hit do, for shore!"

A half-hour later, Brother Japheth, trudging back to Deer Trace o