It had never been expressed in words or demonstration, for of these things the mountaineer is as chary as a grizzly. Often in the long warfare of quarreling and bickering between his father and mother, which Newt regarded as a natural and universal incident of family life, his "pappy" had taken his side and rescued him from a "whopping." Newt thought he would be glad to see his father. He crossed the stile, hewn in rough steps from a poplar stump, and strode over to the broken mill-stone that served as a door-step. He shouted, "I'm a-comin' in," and pushed at the door. It was barred. That was a sign of the troublesome condition of the times. The mountaineer shouts an announcement of his coming from a distance to avoid the seeming of surreptitiousness, but, having reached the threshold, does not knock. "Who's thet?" called a high-pitched, irritable voice from the interior. It was his mother's voice, and Newt replied: "Hit's me, Mammy. Let me in." No outburst or murmur of surprise broke from the cabin at the announcement of the prodigal's return. He heard only the rasping of a bar being drawn from its sockets, and then the door swung in. Newt entered, and with no offer to embrace his mother cast an appraising glance about the place, which the logs on the hearth revealed in a wavering light. The corners of the room were darkly shadowed, but the semicircle about the fireplace was red and yellow from the flames. The rafters were smoke-blackened, and an odor hung between the walls like that in a house used for curing hams. About the fire sat the family group, but none of them rose to welcome him. At the right hand corner sat old Luke. He was not dead then, after all, though just now he was sleeping with his bearded, mummy-like face fallen forward and his long hickory staff resting between his knees. Newt's younger brother, "Little Luke," grown since he had left home from a boy of thirteen to a gawky and angular young cub of sixteen, and his sister, who had been twelve and was now fifteen, stared at him in shy silence. His mother who was only a little more than forty had all the seeming of sixty. She was bent and slovenly. But of his father he saw nothing, though a man sat in the remaining chair, and when this interloper leaned forward, holding down his beard with his forefinger as he spat at the ashes, Newt recognized Clem Rawlins, a distant kinsman. Clem's presence surprised him little, for it would have been quite natural for Clem or any other man who found himself benighted to stop and "stay all night." His mother came forward, and invited: "Take my cheer, Newt. I'll set on the bed." Newt dropped into the seat, and inquired: "Where's pappy?" "Daid," was his mother's laconic reply. "When did he die?" Clem Rawlins answered in a deep, drawling voice: "He failed tol'able fast-like after ye left, Newt. He had the weak treemers, an' died erbout cawn-plantin' time a-follerin' of yore goin' down below."