|IN THE grove before the log schoolhouse, the Teacher was playing a game with the children. It was a game in which every child to the tiniest one could join. Two, standing opposite, with raised arms and the fingers linked, formed a sore of arch, through which the others passed in a circle, holding one another's hands. They all sang as they marched some verses of a mountain song, ending with the line, “An' catch the one that you love best.” When the song came to this line, those forming the arch brought their arms down over the head of the child passing at that moment, and he left the circle and took the place of one of those forming the arch. As each child wished to catch the School-teacher, the man remained standing while the children changed. The little boy David had just been caught. The child, standing with the School-teacher, had taken his place. The circle had begun once more to move, the song to rise, when the miller's daughter, Martha, stopped, disengaged her hand from the child before her and pointed to the road. “There comes Sol an' Suse. I wonder what's the matter, for Sol's got his arm tied up.” The School-teacher stood up and looked over the heads of the children. A man was approaching. The sleeves of a red wammus were tied around his neck, forming a sort of rude sling in which his right arm rested, held horizontally across his breast. A woman, carrying a baby, was walking beside him. The School-teacher spoke to the little girl. “Martha,” he said, “you and David take the children into the schoolhouse, I am going out to meet these people.” When the children had gone in, and the door was closed, the man went down into the road. He waited there until the two persons approached. He saw that both the woman and the man were young, the baby but a few months old--a little family beginning to found a home in the inhospitable mountain. The man was evidently injured. The woman was in distress. Her eyes were red. The muscles of her mouth trembled. The baby, in her arms, wrapped in an old faded shawl, wailed. The School-teacher spoke to the woman. “What has happened?” he said. “My man's got hurt.” “How was he hurt?” “He was choppin' in his clearin', an' his ax ketched in a grapevine, an' throwed him. I reckon his shoulder's all broke. He can't use his arm none.” The School-teacher addressed the man. “How does your arm feel?” “I suppose the jint's smashed.” The tears began to run down over the woman's face. “I don't see why we have such luck,” she said, “an' just when we was a-gittin' sich a nice start. Now, he can't work in his clearin', an' if he don't git his clearin' done this winter, we won't have no crop, an' I don't know what'll become of us.” The man began to chew his lip. “Don' cry, Susie,” he said. “Yes, I'll cry,” replied the woman, “for here's me an' the baby with nothin', and you laid up.” “Maybe I ain't hurt so bad,” the man suggested. The woman continued to cry. “I know better'n that, you're hurt bad.”