He stopped at last before a vacant house, old and decrepit, with sagging front porch, broken panes stuffed with weathered brown newspapers, a general air of run-downness. Maybe he had gone the wrong way. He decided to knock and ask. He knocked at the front door. No answer. He peered through the dusty, fly-scarred windows. Nothing inside, except one broken-down bed and piles of dusty yellowed papers on the floor. He walked laboriously around the house, looking in at each window. No one within. There was a good table in the kitchen, a rusted stove, an old clothes basket hanging on the wall beside a broken lantern, a dilapidated splint-bottomed chair. He came around to the front again. The shade of the lonely spreading oak before the front porch was attractive. He sat down upon some cushioning chigger-weed. The July afternoon wore on; he slept. He woke at the sound of feet sending the gravel flying. A white man approached. "Hey, nigger, what you doing there?" He got to his feet, his hat off. "Ah'm lookin' for Joneses' Hill, suh. Done los' mah way." "I reckon you have! Jones' Hill is in West Adamsville, six miles from here. Live there?" "Aimin' to." "Where do you live now?" "Ah jus' come to town, suh. Ain't picked out mah house yit." Nathaniel Guild considered him. Looked like a respectable negro. "You married?" "Yes, suh. Me 'n' mah ole 'ooman got five chillun, fo' boys an' one girl." The white man looked abstractedly into his face. "I'm looking for a tenant for this house--someone who can keep an eye on the place, and do a little day work now and then." There now! Tom had never doubted for a moment that the Lord would provide. His tone was persuasively eager. "Lawdy, boss, Ah's jes' de man you's lookin' for! Ah does all kin's of wu'k, an' mah ole 'ooman is sho' a powerful cook." "I'll tell you what I'll do. You can come in, for three dollars a month rent. The house can be fixed up, and I'll see that you get more than enough work to pay it off. We may have work for you every day soon. If your wife's a good cook, Tom, you send her over to that new house you see yonder, to Mr. Judson; say Mr. Guild sent you." He walked back through the gate. "There's an excellent spring just at the bottom here; and if you can find any garden truck behind the house, you're welcome to it. There are some tomatoes, I know, and some turnips. If you want some seeds, Mr. Judson will let you have them.... Oh, by the way, here's your key." When these suggestions had become realities, Stella was vehement in her praise of the Judson place. "Dat Miss' Mary, now, she's a sho' 'nuff lady! She order me 'roun' jes' lak Miss' Land useter. Dis is one gran' place, Tom."