But, other than making the assertion that he had no relatives, and nobody depending upon him, and that he did not think it worth while to work over-much, he never carried on a conversation. That there was no one to look after _him_ was a self-evident fact. He lived utterly alone, in a small cabin on the brow of the hill. Rarely a soul but himself ever crossed its threshold. Under the step the gray gophers made their burrow, and, beneath the tall beech trees, that threw down their prickly nuts, the brown weasels played in peaceful groups. The shy quail, sounding their whistle, fled among the ferns; and above, from the myriad branches, the beautiful wild doves mourned out their perpetual sadness. At evening, when the sun went down, and the long line of the Scioto Hills flushed crimson with serene glory; when, by slow degrees, the pageant of departing day withdrew its gorgeous colors; even when the valley below was black with the gloom of night, the western radiance lingered, like the transforming light of some other land, upon the rude cabin, standing on its high and solitary perch. Empty and bare, it afforded but little protection from the weather, for through it the winds blew in Winter, and the rains dripped in Summer. Simlin’s wants, however, appeared to be few and simple. He seldom had a fire, even at the coldest season. What he subsisted upon, nobody knew. Once, perhaps, in two or three days, he would buy a loaf of coarse bread from the baker in the village, and his table evidently was supplied in the most frugal manner. The people put down his besetting sin to be avarice; and the hut, if it contained no furniture, was reported to contain wealth enough, hidden away in its obscure cracks and corners, to have draped its dreary boards in the most costly velvet and lace, and encased its walls with marble. Of course, he was a miser. More than ten years now he had been at the foundry, and not a cent of the wages which he drew regularly had he spent, or put so much as a farthing into the savings bank, where many of the hands had laid up quite a pile. But, unlike the majority of misers, the old man never complained of being poor; indeed, he never complained at all, or spoke of money in any way. If the subject was brought up in his presence, he either preserved utter silence or quietly got up and left; and, if driven to the last extremity, and made to say something, he would remark, running into the same old channel, that “It didn’t much matter—he hadn’t any relatives nor any body dependin’ upon him.”