“_Whar’s—Sam’l—Keale?_” demanded Jepson once more. Neither answered. The shrilling of the locust persisted sharply. Only the rim of the sun showed above the distant blue mountain; the soft suffusions of light upon the great valley were reddening, and a sense of impending shadows, not yet falling, was upon the air. Night was pluming her wings, to spread them erelong. A point of light suddenly scintillated in the dark flow of the mountain stream, for the poetic evening star—how serene!—was in the sky. What prophetic melancholy had pierced the group of pines hard by? Their fringes were astir, and a monody, all tenderly subdued and subtly mournful, was on the air. “Baintree kem down yander ter the blacksmith shop las’ Wednesday,” Jepson resumed abruptly. “I war thar ter hev this hyar horse-critter’s nigh fore-foot shod;” he leaned over, glancing down at it, then came suddenly to the perpendicular. “He kem thar ez ef he expected folks ter ’bide by the verdic’ an’ be sati’fied. He kem in the door an’ walked roun’, an’ then he sot down in the winder. An’ then I jes’ riz up. I said ter him, I said aloud, ‘Cain, I see Abel with ye. I view him thar. Ye needn’t winge away. He hev kem ter abide alongside o’ ye. Ye kin hide him in no caves. He air yer share forever!’ An’ then I turned back ter the anvil, whar Clem Sanders war a-forgin’ of the horse-shoe. An’ time he hed bent the bar I looked over my lef’ shoulder, an’ the winder war empty.” A long pause ensued. “Waal, sir,” Strobe presently remarked, “folks ’low he hev got religion now, an’ air goin’ ter be baptized.” Teck turned a face of amazed anger upon him. “He sha’n’t!” he cried, as arrogantly as if he guarded the gates of heaven. “He shell not save his soul! He shell not reach the golden shore, whilst the man he buried in the depths o’ the yearth, ’thout nare minit’s grace ter think on salvation, air a-welterin’ in brimstun, an’ a-burnin’ in hell. He shell not save his soul!” His breath was short, his cheek flushed, his eye intent and fiery. All at once his whole aspect changed. “Hy’re, A’minty!” he cried out, his flexible voice rising to a cheery key. “I see ye; no use a-hidin’. Supper ready?” For there, sidling along among the weeds in the fence corners, was a small girl, much distraught by the presence of a stranger, and holding her head so bent down that little could be seen of her face for the curling tangled red hair that fell over it. She wore a blue checked homespun frock, and she carried in her arms, feet upward, a large, ungainly yellow cat, with unattractive green eyes, which rolled about while its head hung down. “They blows the horn at the house fur we-uns,” Jepson continued, “but A’minty keeps one eye on the pot, an’ kems arter me jes’ a leetle aforehand every day. She knows I be afeard ter go ter the house by myself. Suthin’ mought ketch me on the road—varmints, or dogs, or sech.” He winked jovially at the two men, but A’minty stood unsmiling by the fence.