About four o’clock in the afternoon, after exploring many roads that led to futile nothing, I was on what seemed the main highway, and dragged myself into the sight of the first mortal since daybreak. He seemed like a gnome as he watched me across the furrows. And so he was, despite his red-ripe cheeks. The virginal mountain apple-tree, blossoming overhead, half covering the toad-like cabin, was out of place. It should have been some fabulous, man-devouring devil-bush from the tropics, some monstrous work of the enemies of God. The child, just in her teens, helping the Gnome to plant sweet potatoes, had in her life planted many, and eaten few. Or so it appeared. She was a crouching lump of earth. Her father dug the furrow. She did the planting, shovelling the dirt with her hands. Her face was sodden as any in the slums of Chicago. She ran to the house a ragged girl, and came back a homespun girl, a quick change. It must not be counted against her that she did not wash her face. The Gnome talked to me meanwhile. He had made up his mind about me. “I guess you want to stay all night?” “Yes.” “The next house is fifteen miles away. You are welcome if what we have is good enough for you. My wife is sick, but she will not let you be any bother.” I wanted to be noble and walk on. But I persuaded myself my feet were as sick as the woman. I accepted the Gnome’s invitation. Let the readers with a detective instinct note that his hoe-handle was two feet short, and had been whittled a little around the top to make it usable. It was at best an awkward instrument. (The mystery will soon be solved.) We were met at the door by one my host called Brother Joseph--a towering shape with an upper lip like a walrus, for it was armed with tusk-like mustaches. He was silent as King Log. But the Gnome said, “I have saved up a month of talk since the last stranger came through.” With ease, with simplicity of word, with I know not how much of guile, he gave fragments of his life: how he had lived in this log house always, how his first wife died, how her children were raised by this second wife and married off, how they now enjoyed this second family. He showed me the other fragment of the hoe-handle. “I broke that over a horse’s head the last time I was drunk. I always get crazy. When I come to, I do not remember anything about it. The last time I fought with my cousin. When I knocked down his horse he drew his knife. I drew _this_ knife. My wife said I fought like a wild hog. I sliced my cousin pretty bad. He skipped the country, for he cut out one of my lungs and two of my ribs. I lost two buckets of blood. It took the doctor a long time to put my insides back.” From this hour forward he struggled between the luxury of being even more confidential, and the luxury of being cautious like a lynx. I squirmed. Despite his abandon, he was watching me.