fferson's crazy hack? Before there would be for him, in some far-away
corner of the world, only Wishing-House and the Never-Never Land?

In the hall he stood a moment before the fireplace, his eyes on its
carven motto, _I clinge_: the phrase was like a spear-thrust. He began
to wander restlessly through the house, up and down, like a prowling
animal. The dining-room looked austere and chill--only the little lady
in hoops and love-curls who had been his great-grandmother smiled
wistfully down from her gilt frame above the console--and in the library
a melancholy deeper than that of yesterday's tragedy seemed to hang,
through which Devil-John, drawing closer the leash of his leaping hound,
glared sardonically at him from his one cold eye. The shutters of the
parlor were closed, but he threw them open and let the rich light
pierce the yellow gloom, glinting from the figures in the cabinet and
weaving a thousand tiny rainbows in the prisms of the great chandelier.

He went up-stairs, into the bedrooms one by one, now and then passing
his hand over a polished chair-back or touching an ornament or a frame
on the wall: into _The Hilarium_ with its records of childish study and
play. The dolls stood now on dress-parade in glass cases, and prints in
bright colors, dear to little people, were on the walls. He opened the
shutters here, too, and stood some time on the threshold before he
turned and went heavily down-stairs.

Through the rear door he could see the kitchens, and Aunt Daphne sitting
under the trumpet-vine piecing a nine-patch calico quilt with little
squares of orange and red and green cloth. Two diminutive darkies were
sprawled on the ground looking up at her with round serious eyes, while
a wary bantam pecked industriously about their bare legs.

"En den whut de roostah say, Aunt Daph?"

"Ol' roostah he hollah ter all he wifes, 'Oo--ooo! Oo--ooo! Young
_Mars'_ come!--Young _Mars'_ come! Young _Mars'_ come!' En dey
all mighty skeered, 'case Mars' John he cert'n'y fond ob fried
chick'n. But de big tuhkey gobbler he don' b'leeve et 'tall.
'Doubtful--doubtful--doubtful!' he say, lak dat. Den de drake he peep
eroun' de cornah, en he say, 'Haish! Haish! Haish!' Fo' he done seed
Mars' John comin', sho' nuff. But et too late by den, fo' Aunt Daph
she done grab Mis' Pullet, en Mars' John he gwineter eat huh dis bery
evenin' fo' he suppah. Now you chillen run erlong home ter yo' mammies,
en don' yo' pick none ob dem green