The woman bent over and looked long at the small olive face, so delicately cut, the damp rings of hair on his forehead, the tragic lift of the brows above the nose bridge, the thin-lipped scarlet mouth. “My baby,” she murmured; then lifted her glance with the question: “An' how come ye to have him? Did she--did that womern--” “No, no. 'Twas this-a-way,” Pap interrupted her. “When I came back from Big Turkey Track, I went down through Hepzibah--I couldn't git this chap's eyes--ner his little hands--out o' my head; I found myse'f a-studyin' on 'em the hull enjurin' time. She was dead when I got thar. She'd died to Squire Cannon's, and they was a-passellin' out the chillen 'mongst the neighbors. No sooner I put foot on the po'ch 'n this little soul come a-runnin' to me, an' says: W'y, here's my pappy, now. I tole you-all I did have a pappy. Now look--see--here he is.' Then he peeked up at me, and he put up his little arms, an' he says, jest as petted, and yit a little skeered, he says, 'Take me, pappy.' When I tuck him up, he grabbed me round the neck and dug his little face into mine. Then he looked around at all the folks, and sort o' shivered, and put his face back in my neck--still ez a little possum when you've killed the old ones an' split up the tree an' drug out the nest.” Both faces were wet with tears now. Pap went on: “I had the papers made right out--I knowed you'd say yes, Cornely. He's Samuel Ephraim Overholt. A-comin' home, the little weenty chap looks up at me suddent an' axes, 'Is they a mammy to we-all's house whar we goin' now?' Lord! Lord!” Pap shook his head gently, as signifying the utter inadequacy of mere words. Little Sammy grew and thrived in the Overholt home. The tiny rootlets of his avid, unconscious baby life he thrust out in all directions through that kind soil, sucking, sucking, grasping, laying hold, drawing to him and his great little needs sustenance material and spiritual. More keen and capable to penetrate were those thready little fibres than the irresistible water-seeking tap-root of the cottonwood or the mesquite of the plains; more powerful to clasp and to hold than the cablelike roots of the rock-embracing cedar. The little new member was so much living sunshine, gay, witching, brilliant, erratic in disposition as he was singular and beautiful in his form and coloring, but always irresistibly endearing, dangerously winning. When he had been Sammy Overholt only two weeks, he sat at table with his parents one day and scornfully rejected the little plate that was put before him. “No!” he cried, sharply. “No, no! I won't have it--ole nassy plate!” “W'y, baby! W'y, Sammy,” deprecated Cornelia, “that's yo' own little plate that mammy washed for you. You mustn't call it naisty.” “Hit air nassy,” insisted young Samuel. “Hit got 'pecks--see!” and the small finger pointed to some minute flaw in the ware which showed as little dots on the white surface.