icks out his han' with his thum' turned in jes so, an' the furriner
says, "Well, ef you can't talk, you kin make purty damn good signs";
but he forks over four mo' dollars (he 'lowed ole Tom had saved him a
pile o' money), an' turns his hoss an' pulls up agin. He was a-gittin'
the land so durned cheap that I reckon he jes hated to let hit go, an'
he says, says he: "Well, hain't the groun' rich? Won't hit raise no
tabaccy nur corn nur nothin'?"

Ole Tom jes whispers:

"To tell you the p'int-blank truth, stranger, that land's so durned
pore that I hain't nuver been able to raise my voice."

Now, brother, I'm a separATE man, an' I don't inQUIZite into no man's
business--but you ax me straight an' I tell ye straight. Ole Tom
Perkins kin trade with furriners, fer he have l'arned their ways. You
watch ole Tom!

GRAYSON'S BABY

The first snow sifted in through the Gap that night, and in a "shack"
of one room and a low loft a man was dead, a woman was sick to death,
and four children were barely alive; and nobody even knew. For they
were hill people, who sicken, suffer, and sometimes die, like animals,
and make no noise.

Grayson, the Virginian, coming down from the woods that morning, saw
the big-hearted little doctor outside the door of the shack, walking up
and down, with his hands in his pockets. He was whistling softly when
Grayson got near, and, without stopping, pointed with his thumb within.
The oldest boy sat stolidly on the one chair in the room, his little
brother was on the floor hard by, and both were hugging a greasy stove.
The little girl was with her mother in the bed, both almost out of
sight under a heap of quilts. The baby was in a cradle, with its face
uncovered, whether dead or asleep Grayson could not tell. A pine
coffin was behind the door. It would not have been possible to add to
the disorder of the room, and the atmosphere made Grayson gasp. He
came out looking white. The first man to arrive thereafter took away
the eldest boy, a woman picked the baby girl from the bed, and a
childless young couple took up the pallid little fellow on the floor.
These were step-children. The baby boy that was left was the woman's
own. Nobody came for that, and Grayson went in again and looked at it
a long while. So little, so old a human face he had never seen. The
brow was wrinkled as with centuries of pain, and the little drawn mouth
looked as though the spirit within had fought its inher