"Mebby I didn’t," he replied, spiritlessly, and with a fit of coughing. He sat on the door-step in the sunshine, his shoulders bent over, his chin almost touching his knees, as much of a vagabond as the day on which he walked up the road, seeking the last of his kith and kin. "It pesters me to see you so down in the mouth. I’m all the time a-wantin’ ter see you pearten up. Don’t that fat light’ood-splinter tea help yer cough?" "No; but don’t you be a-botherin’ erbout me, Peggy. ’Tain’t no use." "Ah, that sayin’ o’ yourn, ’’Tain’t no use,’ has done a sight er harm in this world. Too many folks says it fer their own good," said Mrs. Upchurch solemnly. "That may be so, but I ain’t been no use ter myself nor nobody else." "Well, I say you have. Don’t forgit yer young days an’ the time you run between me an’ old Miss Whitlock’s mad dog. I remember it, an’ I’ll keep on rememberin’ it till I die." "Lor’! that wasn’t nothin’," he said, moving uneasily, a sort of flush passing over his face. "Yet if you hadn’t ’a’ done it, I might not ’a’ been here now," impressively, and with the feeling that she must ever hold him lovingly and gratefully in her heart, no matter how idle and purposeless his life might be—and one might better have been dead than lazy in that community. "Mebby if the little un had ’a’ lived—" he muttered, but leaving the sentence unfinished, he hastily rose and walked away toward the lot. He grew rather fond of Tempy, after a cautious, undemonstrative fashion. His eyes would follow her in an absorbed, wistful way, for in her he saw, as it were, a pale vision of his own child grown to womanhood—a pale vision, for no girl could compare with what the reality would have been in his eyes. Tempy’s wedding-day approached, and he astonished her with the gift of ten dollars—all he had. "Ter help buy yer fixin’s," he said, and carefully restored the empty leather purse to his pocket. The days came and went, and the farmers worked from daylight till dark, but Ab Dyer idled about the house or wandered aimlessly through the woods with a gun. Sometimes he would bring home game, but oftener he would come empty-handed. "What ails him, Peggy?" Sam Upchurch inquired one evening, after Dyer had gone off to bed. "There ain’t nothin’ to be got outen him." "He’s give up—that’s what ails him, an’ it’s the worst thing a body could do fer themselves. Ab always was easy to git down in the mouth, an’ it ’pears like he ain’t a-goin’ to git over the loss o’ his fambly. Poor fellow! he always was an onfortunit creetur," wiping her eyes on her nightcap and sighing deeply. The summer drew near its end, and one cloudy morning, late in August, Sam Upchurch pulled out the buggy, harnessed his best horse to it, and invited Ab to go with him over to Rockymount, to buy some things for Tempy’s wedding. It had rained torrents the night before, and Bear Creek rushed along turbulent, muddy, and nearly up to the bridge.