Within were four rooms of equal size, and back of the house was a summer kitchen. And everything about the place, from the latticed passageway that led to the kitchen, to the serviceable crane that swung in the chief fireplace, spoke of home and comfort. The little windows looked out on a prosperous scene; the mulberry tree, with its golden bark, had places of hiding and nestling for half a dozen children. The bowlders in the stream sheltered ideal swimming holes. The chestnut and butternut trees on the hill behind the house suggested happy autumn days. “It will be a perfect place for children,” decided Mrs. Carson. “And that’s where Hi’s family shall live.” She had taken him to see it, and he had looked at it with eyes which seemed to recognize it as a home returned to, rather than as one just found. So, while he and Mr. Carson took their three days’ journey to Hi’s home, Mrs. Carson busied herself with the cabin. The lattice was freshly whitewashed; the fireplaces within the house and the chimneys that ran up visibly to the ceiling, were painted a dark red. The floors and walls were purified, and the whole place furnished with new, strong mountain furniture. Rag rugs were put on the floor, fresh curtains at the windows, a good stove set up in the kitchen, the comfortable beds were provided with new bedding, and a fine little old clock, taken from the attic of The Shoals, and a mirror from the same place, in its antique frame, were set in place. “Tell your mother to come right along,” Mrs. Carson had warned Hi. “If she has any particular treasure she wishes to bring, well and good. But she’s not to bother about anything else. She’ll be glad to have new things to look at. Women get dreadfully tired looking at the same furniture day in and day out. I believe a new outfit for the house at the right time would have kept many a woman from going insane.” “Yessum,” agreed Jim. “Going over and over a thing is what wears you out, ain’t it?” Mrs. Carson had held some doubts as to the ability of her husband and Hi to persuade a woman to “pull up stakes” at an hour’s notice and to go to a place she perhaps had never heard of. But it appeared that Mrs. Kitchell, like her son, was ready for adventure. Asking no more time than it took to wash and iron the handful of clothes possessed by the family, she packed all her worldly goods—or at least, all she cared to retain—in an old haircloth trunk, and smiling and expectant, turned her face toward Lee. It was a little brown, nutlike face, much like Hi’s, and it was really carved in smiles in spite of all her troubles. There were worried marks between her brows, it is true, but the laughing marks about her eyes and the corners of her mouth, discounted them.