Mr. Dana stayed but three days; his family prolonged their visit into as many weeks; nor would Ida have resigned them then, had not Emma been daily expected; for the school was a fixed fact. Accompanied and guarded by the faithful Will, Ida had explored the woods, gullies and old fields for recruits. Her determined spirit bore her out, or she would have thrown up the project by the end of the first day. She chose what Will called the "toughest cases" for her freshest energies. "The Digganses" lived in a rickety hut, in the exact centre of a common of broom straw, mowed down to stubble, for ten feet around the door--said area populated at Ida's visit, by five white-headed children, three hounds, and two terrier puppies, a full-grown grunter and a brood of little ones, and half a dozen meagre fowls. The hounds bayed; the terriers squeaked their shrill treble; the pigs squealed, and made for the high straw; the human animals scampered squallingly, into the house; while Ida's horse--to complete the hubbub--set up a frightened neigh, and would have run, but for Will's grip. Without waiting for Mrs. Diggans' "Light! won't you?" she sprang from the saddle. The hostess came to the door with a greasy, steaming kettle in one hand, and the flesh-fork in the other. She deposited them upon the ground, wiped her hands upon her begrimmed apron, and offered her right. Ida blessed the ignorance of Fashion's laws in these regions, which did not compel her to remove her gloves. The cabin did not belie the promise of the exterior. It was dingy and dirty, scented with bacon and cabbage, and an indescribable smell, as of a musty cupboard, converted into a sleeping-room. Yet these people were not disreputable, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. They had never been convicted of theft or drunkenness. Indolence and improvidence kept them down, for they were never "up." They were as well off now as when they married; if the children came faster than the bread, they begged or borrowed of their "lucky" neighbors. "I'm mighty pleased to see you!" said Mrs. Diggans, dusting a wooden cricket with the convenient apron. "How much you've growed like your mother. _Good_ Fathers! I never see two folks more alike. You've done come home to live, I've heern." "I hope so, ma'am." "You didn't like town-folks, I 'spose?" "Yes, ma'am; I have some good friends there, but I think my place is here." "Um-_hum_! well--you ain't married?" "Oh! no, ma'am." "But you're goin' to be, I reckon?" slyly. "Not that I know of. But how are you getting on, Mrs. Diggans?" "Ah, Miss Idy! in the same old way;--can't never make both ends jine, but somehow we lives and fattens." "How many children have you?" "Six--my biggest girl is out, visitin' her father's kin." "Is it possible! I must be growing old. I recollect when you were married. You wore your wedding-dress the next Sunday, and I thought it was so fine."