We was singing it, I recollect, when we come in sight of the Toll Gate House. The Toll Gate House has been there for years, ever since the Tote road got made into a real road, and then it got paid for, and the toll part stopped; and now the City rents the house--there’s a place we always say “City” again--to most anybody, usually somebody poor, with a few chickens and takes in washings and ain’t much of any other claim to being thought of, as claims seem to go. “Who lives in the Toll Gate House now, I wonder?” says Mis’ Pettibone, breaking off her song. “Land, nobody,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer; “it’s all fell in on itself--my land,” she says, “the door’s open. Let’s stop and report ’em, so be it’s been tramps.” So we made Jem Meddledipper stop, and somebody was just going to get out when a woman come to the door. She was a little woman, with kind of a pindling expression, looking as if she’d started in good and strong, but life had kind of shaved her down till there wasn’t as much left of her, strictly speaking, as’d make a regular person. A person, but not one that looks well and happy the way “person” means to you, when you say the word. She had on a what-had-been navy-blue what-had-been alpaca, but both them attributes had got wore down past the nap. A little girl was standing close beside her--a nice little thing, with her hair sticking up on top like a candle-flame, and tied with a string. “My land,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer right out, “are you livin’ _here_?” Mis’ Lockmeyer is like that--she always wears her face inside-out with all the expression showing. But the woman wasn’t hurt. She smiled a little, and when she smiled I thought she looked real sweet. “Yes,” she said, “I am. It--it don’t look real like it, does it?” “Well,” puts in Mis’ Pettibone, “gettin’ settled so----” “Oh,” says the woman, “I been here a month.” And Mis’ Lockmeyer, wishing to make amends and pull her foot out, planted the other right along side of it instead. “Do you sell anything? Or sew anything? Or wash and iron anything?” she asks. And the woman says: “I sew and wash and iron anything I can do home, with my little girl. But I ain’t a thing in the world to sell.” “Of course you ain’t,” says Mis’ Lockmeyer soothing, and hoping to make it better still. “Well,” says Mis’ Puppy hearty, “I tell you what. We’ll be out to see you in a little bit, if you want us to.” My land, the woman’s face--I donno whether you’ve ever seen anybody’s face lit up from the inside with the light fair showing through all the pores like little windows? Hers done it. She didn’t say nothing--she just done that. And we drove on. “Land,” says Mis’ Pettibone, thoughtful, “how like each other folks are, no matter how not-like they seem to the folks you think they ain’t one bit like.” “Ain’t they--ain’t they?” says I, hearty. And I guess we all felt the same.