Even aunt Jemima was rather taken aback by this sturdy defiance of fate. She had nothing to say, which was rather rare, for she had given most of her declining years to argument, and much practice had developed her natural resources of contradiction, which were originally great. As Ike’s father was himself testy and dogmatic, and the blind man often proclaimed that he took “nuthin’ off’n nobody,” the family might have been divided by dissension were it not for the placid temperament of Ike’s mother. She received no credit, however, for—as people often observed—she was not born a Guyther and had “no call to be high-strung an’ sperited.” She had been a great beauty in her girlhood and had had lovers by the score, but care and age and poverty had bereft her of her personal charms, and she had neither culture nor grace of manner to fill the breach. Her hard experience of life, however, had failed to sour her temper, and her placidity had something of the buoyancy of youth, as she often declared, “It’ll be all the same a hundred year from now.” “’Pears like ter me ’twon’t blow that hard,” she remarked as she stirred the corn-meal batter in a wooden bowl, “the wind don’t fool much with our orcherd nohow.” “I’d ruther hev the wind ’n, no rain,” said aunt Jemima, plaintively. “I’m a-thinkin’ we’ll git rain too, jes’ ’bout enough. Yellimints don’t neglec’ us noways ez I kin see. Seedtime an’ harvest shell never fail”— “Kems mighty nigh it, wunst in a while,” said aunt Jemima, shaking her head. “Ef ye hed enny jedgment an’ forecast, M’ria, ye’d look fur troubles ahead like them ye hev seen.” There was a shadow on the wasted placid face under Mrs. Guyther’s sunbonnet as she knelt to put the potatoes with their jackets on in the ashes to roast. “Waal—let troubles go down the road. I wouldn’t hev liked thar looks no better through viewin’ ’em ’fore I got ter ’em. I ain’t a-goin’ ter turn roun’ now ter see ag’in how awful they war whenst they war a-facin’ me. Let troubles go down the road.” And so she covered the potatoes while aunt Jemima knit off another row. The next moment both were besprinkled with ashes; the chimney-place seemed full of a vivid white light never kindled on a hearthstone; there was a frightful crack of thunder, then it seemed to roll upon the roof, and the cabin rocked with the fierce assaults of the wind. “That thar shot war aimed p’int blank,” said the blind artillery-man, thrusting his hands deeper in his pockets, and stretching out his long legs, booted to the knee. His gray hair had flakes of the white ashes scattered upon it. “Suthin’ mus’ hev been struck right hyar in the door-yard,” said aunt Jemima. She had laid down her knitting with a sort of affronted and expostulatory air. “I’ll be bound it’s the martin-house.” “I’ll be bound it’s nuthin’ we want,” said Mrs. Guyther.