Mrs. Doggett was quite herself again when the foot of the hill reached, she came in sight of a mud-daubed log-cabin in the valley, with a mighty clump of cedar trees a hundred yards to the left of it, and a section of scattered beeches and undergrowth to the right. The hut was set quite in the open, with no yard fence about it, and looked a lonely and melancholy place. Hanging on the front wall of the cabin, under the newly-built lean-to porch, with its pillars of cedar trunks, from the freshly cut knots of which came a pungently sweet smell,--a long snake's "shed" dangled, and beside it swung a dried beef's gall. In lieu of a porch floor, flat rocks were placed irregularly about. The door of the cabin hung open, revealing walls papered with newspapers. A corner cupboard occupied one corner of the room: a lounge covered with a calico quilt, another, and, drawn up before the blazing wood fire, over which smoked a steaming pot, were a wooden stool and a small table. A little baking-oven, covered with live coals, sat on one end of the hearth, and over everything was a decent air of cleanliness. As Mrs. Doggett neared the cabin, a fat old negress, wearing a faded black calico mourning-dress, and carrying a bundle of sticks, came out of the wood. This was July Pullins, whose living was her pension, and whose pastime was fortune-telling. Her seamed light-brown face wrinkled itself in smiles when she recognized her old acquaintance. "_Is_ dat you, Mis' Doggett?" she cried, as she waddled up. "I am shoah a proud crittur to see you! Laws, I sees you ain't had no easy time a gittin' heah!" she added in ready sympathy, noting Mrs. Doggett's wet skirts, her sweating horse, and panting swine. "Law mercy, July, I hain't had sech a time sence I was borned!" exclaimed Mrs. Doggett, and while old July unharnessed Big Money, and blanketed him with an ancient linsey quilt, she related her trials. "I knows what you come for: you's worried about a marriage, and wants to consultify me about hit, doan' you?" cackled July, as she helped her guest unlace her wet shoes in front of the fire: "but wid yoah p'mission, dat'll keep ontwell de last theng after dinner. I wants to talk ober de news some wid you! Lawd, 'scuse me, Mis' Ann, heah I is, settin' up, talkin' to white folks wid my head-rag on!" She lifted her hand to pull the white rag from her wrapped hair, but Mrs. Doggett interposed. "Now, Aunt July, let your head-rag alone! Eph says he can tell when hit's comin' winter by _my head_. I take to wearin' a rag on my head in the house then!" "Ef yoah foots and skeerts is done dry," remarked the old negress, breaking a half pod of pepper from the string suspended from the end of her mantel, "I'll set you a bite on de table." She lifted the lid of the boiling pot and dropped in the pepper pod with a chuckle. "Heah my honeys, cool yoah moufs wid dis."