Jerry Binwell turned a trifle aside in his chair to hide the scornful curve of his lips. There was no need to shift his posture. Aunt Jemima’s eyes were bent once more upon her knitting, and Abner was blind alike to sneers and smiles. Rosamond’s attention was fixed upon a big red apple roasting and sputtering between two stones that served as fire-dogs. Now and then, with the aid of a stick, she turned the other side of the apple to the heat. Only the blinking cat saw the jeer on his face, and this animal was too frequently ridiculed to care to cultivate any fine distinctions in the nature of laughs. Curiously enough, the cat wore a queer gown of blue-checked homespun and a ruffled cap that was often awry, for she sometimes put up a disaffected paw to scrape it off, or it became disarranged in hasty or too energetic washings of her face. She had been thus accoutered by aunt Jemima to appease Rosamondy’s craving for a live doll. The cat was very much alive, and seated before the fire she had an antique and dame-like look, which was highly appreciated by her owner, but which was totally destroyed when she walked on all-fours. The live doll was eminently satisfactory to Rosamond, and except for the tyranny of her garments was in danger of being killed by kindness. The laugh on Jerry Binwell’s face was only a transient gleam. He relapsed into brooding gravity and meditatively eyed the fire. “Ab,” he said suddenly, when aunt Jemima had left the room to join Mrs. Guyther, who was “sizin’” yarn in the shed-room, and he could hear their voices in animated controversy as to the best methods. “Ab, I’ll tell ye what this windy night in the fall of the year ’minds me of.” His voice had the most agreeable inflections of which it was capable, but it elicited no response, for Abner had not relented toward his old comrade, and seldom would seem aware of his existence. Binwell’s face contorted into a disagreeable grimace. This secret taunt the blind man was spared. Then Binwell’s smooth tones went on as if he had not expected a rejoinder. “’Minds me o’ that night in the old War time whenst me an’ you-uns holped old Squair Torbett ter hide his plunder from g’rillas an’ sech—ye ’member how the wind blowed?” Abner’s fire-lit face glowed with more than the reflection of the flames. His lip curled; the reminiscence seemed to afford him some occult amusement. “I ’member! I ’member!” he said slowly; then he chuckled softly to himself.