, intertwined and almost overgrown by
a tangle of wild grapevines, hid the fall from sight, and behind them
the mountain rose abruptly. A continuous stream of clearest water, icy
cold, fell from high above into a long trough made of a hollow log.
There at the running water stood little Hoyle, his coarse cotton towel
hung on an azalia shrub, giving himself a thorough scrubbing. In a
moment he came in panting, shivering, and shining, and still wet about
the hair and ears.

"Why, you are not half dry, son," said his sister. She took the towel
from him and gave his head a vigorous rubbing. "Go and get warm, honey,
and sister'll give you breakfast by the fire." She turned to David:
"Likely you take milk in your coffee. I never thought to ask you." She
left the room and returned with a cup of new milk, warm and sweet. He
was glad to get it, finding his black coffee sweetened only with
molasses unpalatable.

"Don't you take milk in your coffee? How came you to think of it for
me?"

"I knew a lady at the hotel last summer. She said that up no'th 'most
everybody does take milk or cream, one, in their coffee."

"I never seed sech. Hit's clar waste to my thinkin'."

Cassandra smiled. "That's because you never could abide milk. Mothah
thinks it's only fit to make buttah and raise pigs on."

Old Sally's horse, a thin, wiry beast, gray and speckled, stood ready
saddled near the door, his bridle hanging from his neck, the bit
dangling while he also made his repast. When he had finished his corn
and she had finished her elaborate farewells at the bedside, and little
Hoyle had with much effort succeeded in bridling her steed, she stepped
quickly out and gained her seat on the high, narrow saddle with the ease
of a young girl. Meagre as a willow withe in her scant black cotton
gown, perched on her bony gray beast, and only the bowl of her cob pipe
projecting beyond the rim of her sunbonnet as indication that a face
might be hidden in its depths, with a meal sack containing in either end
sundry gifts--salt pork, chicken, corn-bread, and meal--slung over the
horse's back behind her, and with contentment in her heart, Aunt Sally
rode slowly over the hills to rejoin her old man.

Soon she left the main road and struck out into a steep, narrow trail,
merely a mule track arched with hornbeam and dogwood and mulberry trees,
and towered over by giant chestnuts and oaks and great white pines and
deep green hemlocks. Through myriad leafl