One morning Jasper the Tunker appeared in the clearing before her cabin. She stood in the door as he appeared, shading her eyes with one hand and holding a birch broom in the other. The sunset was flooding the swollen creek in the distance, and shimmering in the tops of the ancient trees. Jasper turned to the door. "This is a lovely morning," said he. "The heavens are blue above us. I hope that you are well." "The top of the morning to you! You are a stranger that I met the other day, I suppose. I've been hopin' you'd come along and see me. Where do you hail from, anyway? Come in and tell me all about it." "I am a German," said Jasper, entering. "I came from Germany to Pennsylvania, and went from there to Ohio, and now I am here, as you see." "How far are you goin'? Or are you just goin' to stop with us here? Southern Injiany is a goodly country. 'Tis all land around here, for _millions_ of miles, and free as the air. Perhaps you'll stop with us." "I am going to Rock Island, on the Mississippi River, across the prairie of the Illinois." "Who are you now, may it please you? What's your callin'? Tell me all about it, now. I want to know." "I am one of the Brethren, as I said. I preach and teach and cobble. I came here now to ask you if you had any shoe-making for me to do." "One of the Tunkers--a Tunker, one o' them. Don't belong to no sect, nor nothin', but just preaches to everybody as though everybody was alike, and wanders about everywhere, as if you owned the whole world, like the air. I've seen several Tunkers in my day. They are becomin' thick in these woods. Well, I believe such as you mean well--let's be charitable; we haven't long to live in this troublesome world. I'm fryin' doughnuts; am just waitin' for the fat to heat. Hope you didn't think that I was wastin' time, standin' there at the door? I'll give you some doughnuts as soon as the fat is hot--fresh ones and good ones, too. I make good doughnuts, just such as Martha used to make in Jerusalem. I've fried doughnuts for a hundred ministers in my day, and they all say that my doughnuts are good, whatever they may think of me. Come in. I'm proper glad to see ye." Jasper sat down in the kitchen of the cabin. The room was large, and had a delightful atmosphere of order and neatness. Over the fire swung an immense iron crane, and on the crane were pot-hooks of various sizes, and on one of these hung a kettle of bubbling fat. The table was spread with a large dish of dough, a board called a kneading-board, a rolling-pin, and a large sheet of dough which had been rolled into its present form by the rolling-pin, which utensil was white with flour. "I knew you were comin'," said Aunt Olive. "I dropped my rollin'-pin this mornin'; it's a sure sign. You said that you are goin' to Rock Island. The Injuns live there, don't they? What are ye goin' there for?"