Mrs. Starkweather sat on the doorstep picking a chicken, which seemed to develop a prodigious accession of leg and neck in the process. She had the set, impervious face of a nervous invalid, and her whole attitude, the downward curve of her mouth, and the elevation of her brows, were eloquent of injustice. The clammy, half-plucked fowl in her hand seemed to share her expression of irreparable injury. She allowed her daughter to climb over her without moving, and when Parker appeared she wiped one long yellow hand on her apron, and gave it to him in a nerveless grasp. "I hope you'll excuse me fer not gettin' up," she drawled; "I guess you c'n get a-past me. Idy, come an' set a rocker fer Mr. Lowe." "I've got my hands in the dough," called her daughter hilariously, from the pantry; "Mr. Lowe'll have to set on his thumb till I get these biscuits in the pan." Parker's head swam. The domestic familiarity of it all filled him with ecstasy. He got himself a chair, and inquired solicitously concerning Mrs. Starkweather's health. "Oh, I'm just about the same," complained his hostess; "not down sick, but gruntin'. Folks that's up an' down like I am don't get nigh as much sympathy as they 'd ought. I tell Starkweather, well folks like him an' Idy ain't fittin' comp'ny fer an inv'lid." "Mr. Starkweather's lookin' better 'n he did," said Parker, listening rapturously to the thumps of the rolling-pin in the pantry. "I think this climate agrees with 'im." "Oh, he's well enough," responded Mrs. Starkweather dejectedly, "if he didn't make 'imself so much extry work. Grubbin' out that vineyard, now! I can't fer the life o' me see"-- "Maw!" called Idy warningly, opening the battened door with a jerk--"you maw! look out, now!" Mrs. Starkweather drooped her mouth, and raised her brows, with a sigh of extreme and most self-sacrificial virtue. "Oh, of course Idy fires up if anybody says anythin' ag'in' 'er fawther. I guess that's always the way; them that does least fer their fam'lies always gets the most credit. I think if some folks was thinkin' more about their dooties an' less about their queer notions, some other folks wouldn't be laid up with miseries in their backs." Having thus modestly obscured herself and her sufferings behind a plurality of backs, Mrs. Starkweather arose and dragged herself into the house. "Gi' me the chicken," said Idy, slamming her biscuits into the oven, and taking the hunchbacked and apparently shivering fowl from her mother. "I ain't a-goin' to have anybody talkin' about pappy, an' you know it. If I was a man, I'd get even with that lyin' Barden, or I'd know the reason why." "That's just what I was sayin'," returned Mrs. Starkweather, with malicious meekness. "If your fawther was the man he'd ought to be, he wouldn't be rode over that way by nobody." The girl's face flamed until it seemed that her blonde thatch of hair would take fire.