She came forward with joy when she saw the visitors. The wizened baby, still in the black calico dress and a very dirty cap, lay on a pallet beneath a big apple tree, with a swarm of flies hovering over it, which an old, old woman who sat by, smoking a pipe, dispersed every now and then with a leafy switch. She took the pipe from her mouth to gaze at the strangers with all her might. "Is them the quare women, Phronie?" she asked. "Hit is," replied Phronie. "That hain't got ary man amongst 'em?" "The same," replied Phronie; then, to the visitors, "This here is my maw's old granny that lives with me; she's terrible old--I allow nigh a hunderd. She don't like to live with none of her grands but me." "Stop talking and set cheers for 'em, Phronie," commanded the old lady, sharply. Whereupon Phronie went into the house and fetched out two chairs, which, with the one the grandmother sat upon, appeared to be the entire stock. When the other two visitors were seated, Isabel, picking up the poor little baby, from whose eyes the experience and suffering of ages looked out, took her seat on a convenient tree-root, whither the other children, who had scattered like rabbits on the appearance of the women, slowly gathered--nine besides the baby. Here the old lady, with the remark, "I was about to forgit my manners," made a sudden dive into her pocket and brought forth a cob pipe similar to the one she was smoking, and a twist of tobacco, handing them to Virginia, with the invitation, "Take a smoke." "Thank you," said Virginia, "but I don't smoke." "Don't you now? Well, that's quare--I'd larn hit if I was you. My ole granny used to look so pretty a-smoking, I kotched hit from her, same as I kotched my trade." "She follers doctoring women when their time comes," explained Phronie. "Me and my ole granny together has brung very nigh all the babes that come to this country for a hunderd year," boasted the old woman. "But, women, if you don't smoke, take a chaw." "No, thanks, I believe not." The old soul looked crestfallen. "I allow you foller chawing manufact', and this here hain't nothing but home-made," she apologized. "No, I should prefer this to manufactured if I took it at all," Virginia assured her; and to Phronie she said: "Tell us more about your baby. How old is it?" "Well, women," said Phronie, in a surprised tone, "I don't rightly know. Hit were borned quite a spell before corn-crapping time--about three or four week, weren't hit, granny?" "Nigher five," granny replied. "I ricollect hit by the dark of the moon." "Then it's around four months old?" "I reckon. But hit hain't growed none sence the day hit come." "Has it been sick?" "No, hit don't appear to be--never hollers or cries none; I never seed a civiler baby. Hit jest lays and pines and pindles." "Do you nurse it yourself?"