" responded old Adam, falling to work with a zest.

"Was that ar young possum she spoke of the one yo' dawg Bess treed day
befo' yesterday, William?" inquired Jim Halloween, whose hopes were
centred upon the reward of his labours.

"Naw! that was an old un," replied William. "But thar never was a better
possum dawg than that Bess of ours. I declar, she's got so much sense
that she'll tree anything that grins at her, whether it's nigger or
possum. Ain't that so, old gal?" he inquired of the spotted hound on a
bed of husks at his side. "It wan't no longer than last week that she
kept that little nigger of Uncle Boaz's up a persimmon tree for mo'n an
hour."

"Thar's some niggers that look so much like possums when they git up in
persimmon branches that it takes a sharp eye to tell the difference,"
observed Tim Mallory.

"Well, I'm partial to possum," remarked old Adam. "When all's said, thar
ain't a better meat to the taste as long as it's plump an' juicy. Will
you hand on that jug of cider, Tim? It's wonderful the way corn shuckin'
manages to parch the throat an' whet the appetite."

The miller, who had declined Betsey's feast of possum, went out as soon
as he had finished his pipe, and turned into the sunken road that led
to Solomon Hatch's. In the little "best room," which was opened only for
"courtings" or funerals, he found Judy seated under a dim lamp with a
basket of darning in her lap.

"I was over at Mrs. Mullen's this morning," she explained, "an' she told
me her eyesight was failing, so I offered to do her darnin'."

Slipping a small round gourd into the toe of a man's black sock, she
examined it attentively, with her needle poised in the lamplight. Then
bending her head slightly sideways, she surveyed her stitches from
another angle, while she smoothed the darn with short caressing strokes
over the gourd. He thought how capable and helpful she was, and from the
cheerful energy with which she plied her needle, he judged that it gave
her pleasure merely to be of use. What he did not suspect was that her
wedding garments had been thrust aside as of less importance than Mrs.
Mullen's basket of darning. She was just the girl for a farmer's wife,
he told himself as he watched her--plain and sensible, the kind that
would make a good mother and a good manager. And all the time a voice in
the back of his brain was repeating distinctly. "They say it will end in
a marriage--they say it will end in a marriage." But