“Waal, ’tain’t goin’ ter last,” rejoined Mrs. Knox, from the doorway, where she sat with her knitting. “’Twar jes’ ter-day I seen my old gray cat run up that thar saplin’ an’ hang by her claws with her head down’ards. An’ I hev always knowed ez that air a sure sign of a change.” Presently she added, “The fire air treadin’ snow now.” She glanced over her shoulder at the deep chimney-place, where a dull wood fire was sputtering fitfully with a sound that suggested footfalls crunching on a crust of snow. “I dunno ez _I_ need be a-hankerin’ fur a change in the weather, cornsiderin’ the rheumatiz in my shoulder ez I kerried around with me ez a constancy las’ winter,” remarked Jonas Scruggs, pre-empting a grievance in any event. “Thar’s the wild geese a-sailin’ south,” Hilary said, in a low, melancholy drawl, as he smoked his pipe, lounging idly on the step of the porch. His mother laid her knitting in her lap and gazed over her spectacles into the concave vault of the sky, so vast as seen from the vantage ground of the little log cabin on the mountain’s brow. Bending to the dark, wooded ranges encircling the horizon, it seemed of a crystalline transparency and of wonderful gradations of color. The broad blue stretches overhead merged into a delicate green of exquisite purity, and thence issued a suffusion of the faintest saffron in which flakes of orange burned like living fire. A jutting spur intercepted the sight of the sinking sun, and with its dazzling disk thus screened, upon the brilliant west might be descried the familiar microscopic angle speeding toward the south. A vague clamor floated downward. “Them fow_els_, sure enough!” she said. “Sence I war a gal I hev knowed ’em by thar flyin’ always in that thar peaked p’int.” “They keep thar alignment ez reg’lar,” said her son suddenly, “jes’ like we-uns hev ter do in the army. They hev actially got thar markers. Look at ’em dress thar ranks! An’ thar’s even a sergeant-major standin’ out ez stiff an’ percise--see him! Thar! Column forward! Guide left! March!” he cried delightedly. “I ’lowed, Hilary, ez ye bed in an’ about bed enough o’ the army,” said the guest, bluntly. Hilary’s face changed. But for some such reminder he sometimes forgot that missing right hand. He made no answer, his moody eyes fastened on that aërial marshaling along the vast plain of the sunset. His right arm was gone, and the stump dangled helplessly with its superfluity of brown jeans sleeve bound about it. “Now that air a true word!” exclaimed Mrs. Knox, “only Hil’ry won’t hev it so. _I_ ’lows ter him ez he los’ his arm through jinin’ the Confed’ army, an’ _he_ ’lows ’twar gittin’ in a fight with one o’ his own comrades.”