"Oh, I’m goin’ to git up," she answered, lightly. "I’m not sick, Luke. I jest laid down awhile to rest. I have to do this nearly every evening. I must git the house straight. Mary an’ Jane hain’t no hands at house-work ’thout I stand right over 'em, an’ Jake an’ his pa is continually a-fussing. I feel stronger already. If you’ll go in t’other room I’ll rise. They’ll never fix you nothin’ to eat nor nowhar to sleep. I reckon you’ll have to lie with Jake like you used to, till I can fix better. Things has been in an awful mess since I got so porely." He went into the front room. The old man had brought his hand-bag in. He had placed it in a chair and opened it and was coolly inspecting the contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls stood looking on. King stared at the old man, but the latter did not seem at all abashed. "Huh," he said, "you seem to be about as well stocked with little tricks as a notion peddler—five or six pair o’ striped socks and no end o’ collars; them things folded under the shirts looks like another suit o’ clothes. I reckon you have had a good job if you carry two outfits around. Though I _have_ heard of printin’-men that went off owin’ accounts here an’ yan." "I paid what I owed before I left," King said, with an effort at lightness as he closed the valise and put it into a corner. In a few minutes his mother came in. She blew out the candle, and as she crossed to the mantel-piece she carefully extinguished the smoking wick with her fingers. The change in her was more noticeable to her son than it had been when she was reclining. She looked very frail in her faded black cotton gown. Somehow, bent as she was, she seemed shorter than of old, more cowed and hopeless. Her shoes were worn through, and her bare feet showed through the holes. "Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?" "Yes’m, but it hain’t tuck up yet." The girl went into the next room, which was used at once for cooking and dining, and her mother followed her. In a few minutes the old woman came to the door. "Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke, it seems funny to make company of you, but somehow I can’t treat you like the rest. You’ll have to make out with what is set before you, though hog-meat is mighty scarce this year. Just at fattenin’-time our pigs took the cholera an’ six laid down in the swamp in one day and died. Pork is fetchin’ fifteen cents a pound in town, and mighty few will sell on a credit." XV After supper King left his mother and step-sisters removing the dishes from the table and went out. He was sickened to the depths of his sensitive soul by the sordid meal he had just seen the family partake of with evident relish, as if it were of unusual occurrence. And he was angry with himself, too, for feeling so, when such a life had been their lot so long.