Nehemiah gave a little skip that might suggest a degree of triumph. “Aha, not ploughin'! But _Ty_ is ploughin', I seen him in the field. An' Lee-yander ain't ploughin'! An' how did I know? Ez I war a-ridin' along through the woods this mornin' I kem acrost a striplin' lad a-walkin' through the undergrowth ez onconsarned ez a killdee an' ez nimble. An' under his chin war a fiddle, an' his head war craned down ter it.” He mimicked the attitude as he stood on the hearth. “He never looked up wunst. Away he walked, light ez a plover, an' _a-ping, pang, ping, pang_,” in a high falsetto, “went that fiddle! I war plumb 'shamed fur the critters in the woods ter view sech idle sinfulness, a ole _owel_, a-blinkin' down out'n a hollow tree, kem ter see what _ping, pang, ping, pang_ meant, an' thar war a rabbit settin' up on two legs in the bresh, an' a few stray razor-back hawgs; I tell ye I war mortified 'fore even sech citizens ez them, an' a lazy, impident-lookin' dog ez followed him.” “How did ye know 'twar Lee-yander?” demanded Mrs. Sudley, recognizing the description perfectly, but after judicial methods requiring strict proof. “Oh-h! by the fambly favor,” protested the gaunt and hard-featured Nehemiah, capably. “I knowed the Yerby eye.” “He hev got his mother's eyes.” Mrs. Sudley had certainly changed her stand-point with a vengeance. “He hev got his mother's _be-you-ti-ful blue_ eyes and her curling, silken brown hair--sorter red; little Yerby in _that_, mebbe; but sech eyes, an' sech lashes, an' sech fine curling hair ez none o' yer fambly ever hed, or ever will.” “Mebbe so. I never seen him more'n a minit. But he might ez well hev a _be-you-ti-ful_ curlin' nose, like the elephint in the show, for all the use he air, or I be afeard air ever likely ter be.” ***** Tyler Sudley's face turned gray, despite his belligerent efficiencies, when his wife, hearing the clank of the ox-yoke as it was flung down in the shed outside, divined the home-coming of the ploughman and his team, and slipped out to the barn with her news. She realized, with a strange enlightenment as to her own mental processes, what angry jealousy the look on his face would have roused in her only so short a time ago--jealousy for the sake of her own children, that any loss, any grief, should be poignant and pierce his heart save for them. Now she was sorry for him; she felt with him. But as he continued silent, and only stared at her dumfounded and piteous, she grew frightened--she knew not of what. “Shucks, Ty!” she exclaimed, catching him by the sleeve with the impluse to rouse him, to awaken him, as it were, to his own old familiar identity; “ye ain't 'feared o' that thar snaggle-toothed skeer-crow in yander; he would be plumb comical ef he didn't look so mean-natured an' sech a hyper-crite.” He gazed at her, his eyes eloquent with pain. “Laurely!” he gasped, “this hyar thing plumb knocks me down; it jes takes the breath o' life out'n me!”