"I seen him at Cribb's Ridge this morning," answered the stranger at last. "Said he'd hurt his foot, or strained his knee, or something, an' would have to come on a bit slow. He'll be along some time to-night, I guess. Didn't seem to me to have much wrong with him. No, ye can't have none o' that cheese. Go 'way an' lay down," he added suddenly to the great black dog, who had returned to his side and laid his head on the stranger's knee. With a disappointed air the dog obeyed. "'Tain't often Jim's so civil to a stranger," muttered Blackstock to himself. A little boy in a scarlet jacket, with round eyes of china blue, and an immense mop of curly, fluffy, silky hair so palely flaxen as to be almost white, came hopping and skipping into the store. He was greeted with friendly grins, while several voices drawled, "Hullo, Woolly Billy!" He beamed cheerfully upon the whole company, with a special gleam of intimate confidence for Tug Blackstock and the big black dog. Then he stepped up to the stranger's knee, and stood staring with respectful admiration at those flowing jet-black side-whiskers. The stranger in return looked with a cold curiosity at the child's singular hair. Neither children nor dogs had any particular appeal for him, but that hair was certainly queer. "Most an albino, ain't he?" he suggested. "No, he ain't," replied Tug Blackstock curtly. The dog, detecting a note of resentment in his master's voice, got up and stood beside the child, and gazed about the circle with an air of anxious interrogation. Had any one been disagreeable to Woolly Billy? And if so, who? But the little one was not in the least rebuffed by the stranger's unresponsiveness. "What's that?" he inquired, patting admiringly the stranger's shiny leather case. The stranger grew cordial to him at once. "Ah, now ye're talkin'," said he enthusiastically, undoing the flap of the case. "It's a book, sonny. The greatest book, the most _interestin'_ book, the most useful book--and next to the Bible the most high-toned, uplifting book that was ever written. Ye can't read yet, sonny, but this book has the loveliest pictures ye ever seen, and the greatest lot of 'em for the money." He drew reverently forth from the case a large, fat volume, bound sumptuously in embossed sky-blue imitation leather, lavishly gilt, and opened it upon his knees with a spacious gesture. "There," he continued proudly. "It's called 'Mother, Home, and Heaven!' Ain't that a title for ye? Don't it show ye right off the kind of book it is? With this book by ye, ye don't need any other book in the house at all, except maybe the almanack an' the Bible--an' this book has lots o' the best bits out of the Bible in it, scattered through among the receipts an' things to keep it all wholesome an' upliftin'.