Tom glanced around him at the desolation of the poor, bare little place, at the empty bed, and the small trunk at the foot of it. "You are not going to stay here alone, man?" he said. "Yes," he was answered. "I have something to do; I must be alone." Tom hesitated a moment. "Well," he said, at length, "I suppose I've done, then. Good-bye." "Good-bye," he was answered. "The Lord--the Lord will reward you." And then Tom crossed the room slowly and reluctantly, passed out, and closed the door after him. * * * * * When he opened his own door, he struck his foot against something and stumbled over it. It was a primitive wooden cradle--somewhat like a box on rockers--a quilt of patchwork covered it, and upon the small pillow rested the round black head of his new possession. He stopped short to regard it. Aunt Mornin had left it there while she occupied herself with preparing supper in the kitchen. It really looked quite comfortable. Gradually a smile established itself upon Tom's countenance. "By thunder!" he said, "here you are, youngster, ain't you? You've come to stay--that's what you've come for." And, being answered by a slight stirring of the patchwork quilt, he put his foot out with much cautiousness, touched the rocker, and, finding to his great astonishment that he had accomplished this much safely, he drew up a chair, and, sitting down, devoted himself with laudable enthusiasm to engineering the small ark with a serious and domestic air. CHAPTER V In two days' time the whole country had heard the news. The mystery of Blair's Hollow was revived and became a greater mystery than ever. The woman was dead, the man had disappeared. The cabin stood deserted, save for the few household goods which had been left just as they were on the day of the funeral. Not an article had been moved, though the woman to whom Tom De Willoughby, as the person most concerned, handed over the discarded property, did not find the little trunk, and noticed that articles had been burned in the fireplace in the front room. "Thar wus a big pile o' ashes on the ha'th," she said to her friends, "sorter like as if he'd been burnin' a heap a little things o' one sort or 'nother. It kinder give me cold chills, it looked so lonesome when I shut the door arter the truck was gone. I left the ashes a-lyin' thar. I kinder had a curi's feelin' about touchin' on 'em. Nothing wouldn't hire me to live thar. D'Willerby said he reckoned I could hev moved right in ef I wanted to, but, Lawsy! I wouldn't have done it fer nothin'." But that which roused the greatest excitement in the community was Tom De Willoughby's course. At first Mrs. Doty's story of Big Tom's adoption of the child was scarcely accepted as being a possibility. The first man who heard it received it with a grin of disbelief. This individual was naturally Mr. Doty himself.