But now father, mother and boy were silent as they stood together looking up where the red road made its way through the forest over the gap. Pa was the first to speak. “As near as I can make out,” he said slowly, “it’s three wagons loaded to the limit, and a lot of people on foot walking alongside.” “Queer doings, ain’t it?” murmured ma. “I allow I’d better run up the road a piece,” Jim said, slipping in his words softly, as if he hoped they might go unnoticed, “and see what’s doing.” “And I allow,” said his father in his most downright voice, “that we-all will just sit down and eat that there good breakfast ma has cooked, and if we keep eating steady we’ll be through with the whole business before them folks, whoever they be, gets anywhere nigh.” “Oh, yes!” added ma, “I do wish you’d sit down and eat things while they’re hot and fit for eating.” So they sat down and went at their breakfast as if it were a piece of hard work that must be got out of the way, and then, having finished and slipped what was left to Molly’s cat and the four hounds, they got out of doors as quickly as they could. “The procession is hid around the bend of the road,” said ma. But even as she spoke the words, the “procession” appeared, though it was almost above the McBirney’s heads. Both men and animals were moving along very slowly, as if—as pa put it—they were “dead beat.” “It looks,” said ma softly, “like a funeral.” “No, it don’t nuther, ma,” pa answered sharply. “It don’t look nothing like a funeral. It looks like a family moving.” “It’s a mighty large family then, Thomas.” “Maybe it’s folks going down to work in the cotton mill at Lee,” Jim suggested. “I heard Rath Rutherford saying there was agents going all through the mountains, asking folks to go down and work.” “Yes, folks with children,” snapped Pa McBirney. “That’s the kind they want, and that’s the kind that’ll go—folks that can get their boys and girls in the mill and make ’em work for ’em. I’d see _myself_ lying down and letting my children put food in my mouth!” “Well, as near as I can make out,” said Mary McBirney, “there’s only two children in that company. All the rest is grown folks.” The three wagons with their sagging cloth tops, swung around the next curve and turned toward the McBirney cabin. The horses walked with drooping heads; the people dragged their feet. Pa went forward to meet them, and close behind him, trying hard to see and not to be seen, went Jim. Ma McBirney went back and sat on a chair in the doorway, something as a queen might go back and sit on her throne. “Howdy,” said pa. “Howdy,” responded the man who led the first pair of horses. Pa asked no questions—that would not have been polite according to his idea. He seemed not to look at the tired horses or the still more weary men and women, or at the wagons with their queer load. All he said was: