With a great clatter of shoes and chairs they rose and gathered around him, leaving their benefactor submerged in their shadow. Each took the paper and examined it silently, and then they slowly dispersed, leaving the document on the table. Sam King started aimlessly toward the kitchen, but finally turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the road. Mrs. King looked at Laramore helplessly and went out into the kitchen, and exchanging glances, the two girls followed her. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing the paper from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it to his half-brother. Laramore motioned it from him. “Give it to mother,” he said. “She ‘ll take care of it. By the way, Loften will get out at once. The price paid includes the crops, and they are in very good condition.” He had Jake’s bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake listening to the drone of excited conversation from the family which had gathered under the trees in front of the cabin. About eleven o’clock some one came softly into his room. The moon had risen and its beams fell in at the open door. It was his mother, and she was moving toward his bed with cat-like caution. “Is that you, mother?” he asked. For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she could not reply. “Oh, I tried not to wake you,” she stammered. “I just wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable.” “It is all right. I wasn’t asleep, anyway.” He could feel her trembling as she sat down on the edge of his bed. “Seems like you couldn’t sleep, nuther,” she said. “Thar hain’t a shut eye in this cabin. They’ve all laid down, an’ laid down an’ got up ergin, over an’ over.” She laughed softly and twisted her hands nervously in her lap. “We are all that excited we don’t know which way to turn. Why, Luke, it ’ll be the talk o’ the county! Sech luck hain’t fell to any family as pore as we are sence I can remember. La, me! It ‘ud make you split yore sides a-laughin’ jest to set out thar an’ listen to all the plans they are makin’. But Sam has the least of all to say; an’, Luke, I’m sorter sorry fer ‘im. He feels bad about the way he has al’ays treated you. He’s too back’ard an’ shamefaced to ax yore pardon, an’ he begged me jest now to do it fer ’im the fust time I got a chance. He’s a good man, Luke, but he’s gittin’ old, an’ has been hounded to death by debt an’ ill-luck.” “I know it; he is all right,” replied Lara-more, tremulously. “Tell him I have not the slightest ill-will against him, and that I hope he will get along better now.” “You talk like you don’t intend to stay.” “No; I shall have to return North pretty soon--that is, after I see you moved into your new home. I can do better up there; you know I was not cut out for a farmer.” “I reckon you know best ’bout your own arrangements, but I hate to have you go ag’in. I’d like to have all my children with me ef I could.”