She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the brook on the stones. When she reached him she put her hand on his arm and laughed: “La, me, boy, a little wet won’t hurt me--I’m used to it; I’ve milked the cows in that thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep. I ‘lowed I’d find you heer some’rs. You used to be a mighty hand to sneak off from the rest, an’ you hain’t got over it. But you have changed. You don’t talk our way exactly, an’ I reckon that’s what aggravates Sam. He was goin’ on jest now about yore bein’ stuck up in yore talk an’ eatin’.” He looked past her at the full moon which was rising above the trees. “Mother,” said he, abruptly, and he put his arm around her neck, and his eyes filled--“mother, I don’t see how I can stay here long. Your health is bad and you are not comfortable; the others are strong and can stand it, but you can’t. Come away with me, for a while anyway. I ’ll put you under a doctor and make you comfortable.” She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment, then she slapped him playfully on the breast and drew away from him. “How foolish you talk!” she laughed; “why, you know I couldn’t leave Sam an’ the children. He’d go stark crazy ‘thout me round, an’ they’d be ‘thout advice an’ counsel. La, me! What makes you think I ain’t comfortable? This house is a sight better ’n the last one we had, an’ dryer, an’ a heap warmer inside. Hard times is likely to come anywhar an’ any time. It strikes rich an’ pore alike. Thar’s ‘Squire Loften offerin’ his big river-bottom plantation an’ the best new house in the county at a awful sacrifice, kase he is obliged to raise money to pay out ’n debt. He offers it fer ten thousand dollars, an’ it’s wuth every dollar of twenty. Now, ef we-all jest had sech a place as that we’d ax nobody any odds. Sam an’ Jake are hard workers, but they’ve had ’nough bad luck to dishearten anybody.” “Ten thousand dollars!” Laramore’s heart bounded suddenly. It was exactly the amount he had in a Boston bank--all that he had ever been able to save. He had calculated on investing it with some literary friends in a magazine of which he was to be the editor. “Do you think they could manage the place successfully, mother?” he asked, after a moment. “Why, you know they could,” she returned. “A body could make a livin’ on that land and never half try. ‘Squire Loften spent his money like water, an’ let a gang o’ triflin’ darkies eat ’im up alive.” “I remember the farm and the old house very well,” he said, reflectively. “They turned that into a barn,” she ran on, enthusiastically. “The new house is jest splendid--green blinds to the winders, an’ cyarpets on the floors, a spring-house, an’ a windmill to keep the house an’ barn in water.” “We’d better go in,” he said, abruptly; “you ’ll catch cold out here in the dew.” She laughed childishly as she walked back to the cabin by his side. A thick smoke and an unpleasant odor met them at the door.