Indeed, no one seemed to like him, and the dislike was mutual, for if he was familiar with any one except Jo, my mother, and myself, I never knew of it. He seldom spoke even to my grandmother when I was about, and I think only very rarely at any other time, for they seemed never to have recovered from some old trouble. There was this much charity for him, however--the people said no more than that he was an exceedingly odd sort of a man (a verdict true of his appearance as well as disposition, for he was very large, very raw-boned, and clean shaven), and let him alone, which of all things he probably most desired. The people frequently met him walking along the road swinging a stout stick, and taking tremendous strides (he never owned a horse, but took long journeys on foot, refusing a ride if offered him by a wagon going in the same direction), but he did not speak to them unless compelled and apparently had no other desire than to be let alone. He never went anywhere except to the timber to make shingles, and off on excursions afoot nobody knew whither, from which he always returned in a few days in exactly the same mood as that in which he had started. I have heard that he had relatives living in a settlement south of us, but whether he went to visit them on his journeys, or spent the money he earned in shingle-making in walking about for his health, paying for his entertainment where-ever night overtook him, I did not know then, nor do I know now. Once in a long while he came to our house, always when my father was away; and, after watching my mother awhile as she went about her work, went away again, sometimes without saying a word, although she always talked kindly to him, and was glad to see him. Occasionally he would accept her invitation to refresh himself with food, but not often; and when he did he would be offended unless she took a present of money to buy something to remember him by. If she was dangerously ill--which was often the case, for she was never strong--he was never sent for. Nobody thought of him as of any use or as caring much about it; but when she had recovered, he would come over, and, after looking at her curiously, return home satisfied. I think that had she died, he would not have been invited to the funeral, but I am certain that after it was all over, he would often have visited her grave, and looked at it in quiet astonishment. On returning from her visits to the sick, my grandmother usually stopped at our house, and sometimes I was lifted up behind to go home with her to take care of the horse she rode, for my grandfather disliked horses.