“I'll not take his word for it till I've tried it,” Ralph Rundel answered, as he untied the bag and tested the mixture between thumb and forefinger. “Storekeepers sell what they have in stock, and kin make such fellers as us take dried cabbage-leaves if they take a notion.” Ralph was only fifty years of age, and yet he had the manner, decrepitude, and spent utterance of a man of seventy. His scant, iron-gray hair was disheveled; his beard, of the same grizzled texture, looked as if it never had been trimmed, combed, or brushed, and was shortened only by periodical breaking at the ends. Despite his crude stoicism, his blue eyes, in their deep sockets, had a wistful, yearning look, and his cheeks were so hollow that his visage reminded one of a vitalized skull. His chest, only half covered by a tattered, buttonless shirt, was flat; he was bent by rheumatism, which had left him stiff, and his hands were mere human talons. Paul was busy unhooking the traces from the swingletrees and untying the straps of the leather collars, when Ralph's voice came to him above the creaking of the harness and impatient stamping of the hungry horses. “I noticed you took yore gun along this mornin'. Did you kill me a bird, or a bushy-tail? Seems like my taste for salt pork is clean gone.” “I didn't run across a thing,” Paul answered, as he lifted the harness from the lead horse and allowed the animal to go unguided to his stall through the gate Ralph held open. “Besides, old Hoag counts my loads, and keeps tab on my time. I can't dawdle much and draw wages from him.” “Did he pay you anything to-day?” Ralph was filling his pipe, feebly packing the tobacco into the bowl with a shaky forefinger. “He had no small change,” Paul answered. “Said he would have some to-morrow. You can wait till then, surely.” “Oh yes, I'll have to make out, I reckon.” At this juncture a woman appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was a blue-eyed, blond-haired creature of solid build in a soiled gray print-dress. She was Paul's aunt, Amanda Wilks, his mother's sister, a spinster of middle age with a cheerful exterior and a kindly voice. “You'd better come on in and git yore supper, Paul,” she called out. “You like yore mush hot, and it can't be kept that away after it's done without bakin' it like a pone o' bread. You've got to take it with sour blue-john, too. Yore ma forgot to put yesterday's milk in the spring-house, and the cow kicked over to-night's supply just as I squirted the last spoonful in the bucket. Thar is some cold pork and beans. You'll have to make out.”