The immediate family sat on the front sapling, facing the preachers, who occupied a plank against the grave-house. Mrs. Salyer pointed out Emmeline's bereaved "widow" to me. He sat with drooping head and utterly dejected attitude, while the row of children with him wept. Just at his side was a wholesome-faced young woman, surely too old to be Emmeline's daughter, holding on one arm a child about a year-and-a-half old, and in the other a very pink new baby. "Who is that?" I inquired. Mrs. Salyer whispered back, "That's his new woman, Mary,--of course he was bound to get him one right off, with all them young ones. She treats them mighty good, too. The new one's hers,--it come eight days ago, just in time for the funeral occasion." When the first preacher started to speak, and Emmeline's virtues began to be aired, I saw with interest and surprise that Mary wept as sincerely and heartily as anybody, her tears dropping down impartially upon the nursing baby and the older one. Once, when her husband seemed quite overcome, she laid a pitying hand on his shoulder; at other times, with a corner of her apron she tenderly wiped the eyes and noses of all the children within reach. And when, later, the preacher referred solemnly and unblinkingly to the fact that Emmeline's offsprings had now fell into the hands of a step-maw, and it behooved her to remember that she must one day give account to the God of widows and orphans, she bowed her head very humbly, and seemed to be at once overwhelmed and uplifted by the thought of her responsibility. Her face was really wonderful and beautiful, and in it I saw far more hope for the happiness of Emmeline's offsprings than in that of the "widow." In both wives he appears to have received more than his deserts. The whole scene--the lonely mountain-shoulder, the weather-beaten grave-houses, the isolated little home below, the reds and yellows of the forest fading after a night of heavy frost, the ancient spectacle of human bereavement and sorrow with nothing to relieve it save the look on Mary's face--went to my heart till the tears came. At four o'clock, having heard five preachers and several funeral songs, we took our departure. The occasion was to last all day Sunday, too. I, however, besought Mrs. Salyer to let the boys have one day at home, and at last gained her consent; and when we were once more in bed, and conversation had languished, and Ponto was thumping the floor with his tail again, Keats raised his head from the pillow to murmur, sleepily, but rapturously "Gee-oh,--a whole 'nother day at home to-morrow!" On our arrival at the school to-night after dark, I heard that Nucky had left Friday in spite of my commands, and had not yet returned. XV TROUBLE ON TRIGGER AND ELSEWHERE _First Monday, November._ About ten this morning, Nucky came silently into the cottage, got his books, and was starting to the school-house, when I called him into my room. "Did you go home?" I asked. "Yes."