It was a fad of Aunt Dilsey's to bring one covered splint basket and one close-mouthed tin bucket with her when she came to work in the morning, and to take both of them away with her--under her dolman cape--at night; and in her cabin on Plunkett's Hill she had a large family of her own and two paying boarders, all of whom had the appearance of being well nourished. If you, reader, are Southern-born, these seemingly trivial details may convey a meaning to your understanding. So Aunt Dilsey Turner looked after the judge's wants from the big old kitchen that was detached from the rest of the rambling white house, and Jeff had the run of his sideboard, his tobacco caddy, and his wardrobe. The judge was kept comfortable and they were kept happy, each respecting the other's property rights. It was nine o'clock in the evening of the last day of the county fair. The judge, mellowly comfortable in his shirtsleeves, reclined in a big easy rocking-chair in his sitting room. There was a small fire of hickory wood in the fireplace and the little flames bickered together and the embers popped as they charred a dimmer red. The old judge was smoking his homemade corncob pipe with the long cane stem, and sending smoke wreaths aloft to shred away like cobweb skeins against the dingy ceiling. “Jeff!” he called to a black shadow fidgeting about in the background. “Yas, suh, Jedge; right yere!” “Jeff, if your discernin' taste in handmade sour-mash whisky has permitted any of that last batch of liquor I bought to remain in the demijohn, I wish you'd mix me up a little toddy.” Jeff snickered and mixed the toddy, mixing it more hurriedly then common, because he was anxious to be gone. It was Saturday night--a night dedicated by long usage to his people; and in Jeff's pocket was more ready money than his pocket had ever held before at any one time. Moreover, in the interval between dusk and dark, Jeff's wardrobe had been most grandly garnished. Above Mr. Clay Saunders' former blue serge coat a crimson necktie burned like a beacon, and below the creased legs of Mr. Otterbuck's late pearl-gray trousers now appeared a pair of new patent-leather shoes with pointed toes turned up at the ends like sleigh-runners and cloth uppers in the effective colors of the Douglas plaid and rows of 24-point white pearl buttons. Assuredly Jeff was anxious to be on his way. He placed the filled toddy glass at the old judge's elbow and sought unostentatiously to withdraw himself. “Jeff!” said the judge. “Yas, suh.” “I believe Mr. Jackson Berry did not see fit to return to the fair grounds this evenin' and protest the result of the third heat?” “No, suh,” said Jeff; “frum whut I heared some of the w'ite folks sayin', he driv right straight home and went to bed and had a sort of a chill.”