His eyes followed hers. Beyond a row of alder-bushes and a little patch of corn he saw the dim outlines of a log stable and lean-to shed surrounded by a snake fence. Away out toward the red-skied west lay green fields and meadows under a canopy of blue smoke, and beyond their limits rose the frowning mountains, upon the sides of which long, sinuous fires were burning. “I reckon I ort not to run upon her too sudden,” he said, awkwardly, “bein’ as she ain’t expectin’ me, an’ hain’t no idee I’m alive. Is she well?” “Toler’ble,” replied Mrs. Sanders, hesitatingly. “She’s been complainin’ some o’ headaches lately, an’ her appetite ain’t overly good, but she’s up an’ about, an’ will be powerful glad to see you. She talks about you a good deal of late. Jest atter yore brother Joe’s death she had ‘im on her mind purty constant, but now she al’ays has some ‘n’ to say about Jim--that’s yore name, I believe?” He nodded silently, not taking his eyes from the cow-lot. His valise rolled from his knees down on to the grass, and one of the children restored it to him. “Yes, that is a fact,” put in Sanders. “She was talkin’ last Sunday about her two boys. She al’ays calls you the steady one. You ort to be sorter cautious. Old folks like her sometimes cayn’t stand good news any better ’n bad.” “I ’ll be keerful.” His voice sounded husky and deep. “Does she--” he went on hesitatingly--“does she work fer you around the place?” Sanders crossed his legs and cleared his throat. “That was the understandin’ when we agreed to take ‘er,” he said, rather consequentially. “She was to make ‘erse’f handy whenever she was able. My wife has had a risin’ on ’er arm an’ couldn’t cook, an’ we’ve had five ur six field hands here to the’r meals. The old critter was willin’ to do anything to git a place to stay. The’ wasn’t any-whar else fer ‘er to go. She’s too old to do much, but she’s willin’ to put ’er hands to anything. We cayn’t complain. She gits peevish now an’ then, though, an’ ‘er eyesight an’ memory’s a-failin’, so that she makes mistakes in the cookin’. T’other day she salted the dough twice an’ clean furgot to put in sody.” “She’s gittin’ into ’er second childhood,” added Mrs. Sanders, “an’ she ain’t got our ways in church notions, nuther. She’s a Baptist, you know, an’ b’lieves in emersion of the entire body an’ in close communion an’ sechlike, while the last one of us, down to little Sally thar, is Methodists. She goes whar we do to meetin’ ‘ca’se her church is too fer off an’ we use the hosses Sundays.” Bradley’s face was hidden by the dusk and the brim of his slouch hat, and they failed to notice the hot flush that rose into his cheeks. He got up suddenly and put his valise on a chair. “I reckon I mought as well walk out to whar she is,” he said. “She won’t be apt to know me. I’ve turned out a beard an’ got gray sence she seed me.”