ustomary until lumbering and other industrial works began
to invade the solitudes. To-day it is the rule to charge twenty-five
cents a meal and the same for lodging, regardless of what the fare and
the bed may be. When you think of it, this is right, for "the porer
folks is the harder it is to _git_ things."

The mountaineers always are eager for news. In the drab monotony of
their shut-in lives the coming of an unknown traveler is an event that
will set the whole neighborhood gossiping. Every word and action of his
will be discussed for weeks after he has gone his way. This, of course,
is a trait of rural people everywhere; but imagine, if you can, how it
may be intensified where there are no newspapers, few visitors, and
where the average man gets maybe two or three letters a year!

Riding up a branch road, you come upon a white-bearded patriarch who
halts you with a wave of the hand.

"Stranger--meanin' no harm--_whar_ are you gwine?"

You tell him.

"What did you say your name was?"

You had not mentioned it; but you do so now.

"What mought you-uns foller for a living?"

It is wise to humor the old man, and tell him frankly what is your
business "up this 'way-off branch."

Half a mile farther you espy a girl coming toward you. She stops like a
startled fawn, wide-eyed with amazement. Then, at a bound, she dodges
into a thicket, doubles on her course and runs back as fast as her
nimble bare legs can carry her to report that "Some-_body_ 's comin'!"

At the next house, stopping for a drink of water, you chat a few
moments. High up the opposite hill is a half-hidden cabin from which
keen eyes scrutinize your every move, and a woman cries to her boy:
"Run, Kit, down to Mederses, and ax who _is_ he!"

As you approach a cross-roads store every idler pricks up to instant
attention. Your presence is detected from every neighboring cabin and
cornfield. Long John quits his plowing, Red John drops his axe, Sick
John ("who's allers ailin', to hear _him_ tell") pops out of bed, and
Lyin' John (whose "mouth ain't no praar-book, if it _does_ open and
shet") grabs his hat, with "I jes' got ter know who that feller is!"
Then all Johns descend their several paths, to congregate at the store
and estimate the stranger as though he were so many board-feet of lumber
in the tree or so many pounds of beef on the hoof.

In every settlement there is somebody who makes a pleasure of gathering
and spreading news. Such a one we h