On the edge of the road at the fence corner nearest the cabin, Litman’s granddaughter has a doll house; if mere tracings of pebbles and shells gathered from the creek shallows can be called partitions and the bushes and vines, walls and a roof. The white room is traced in white pebbles the red room in red pebbles and the kitchen in the commoner blue ones. The furnishings are bits of broken crockery, glass and shell. The dolls are small bleached bones or bits of peeled pawpaw sticks, dressed in blouses made from a worn out sleeve of grandpa’s red undershirt and skirts from scraps of worn and faded calico. She has never seen a doll house, never a real doll, only pictures. This, her creation, was suggested by instinctive motherhood and love for home. A passing traveler would have thought several children were playing at the fence corner. The little make-believe mother was talking to her babies and answering for them in even thinner and more subdued voice than her own; though she had the low voice of a child accustomed to play alone. “Now Jeanne, let’s make grandpa some nice pone bread; the meal is fresh and sweet. When it is ready you run to the spring and bring him a cup of cold milk.” “Granny, while you are mixing the bread maybe I can find an egg in the loft. I heard Old Speck cackling.” “There is grandpa calling, I will go and see what he wants.” “He says, would you mind moving him a wee bit? His bones shore do ache.” Here the dialogue ended, the girl’s attention having been caught by the voice of an old friend; except for which the valley had the quietude not alone of a warm mid-afternoon but of a great solitude, so profound that you might even fancy hearing the smoke curling up from the chimney of the cabin, a hundred yards away. Yet, if you listen you may hear the chirping of the grass creatures and the rippling water washing along the pebbly bed of the creek. A lone tree, long dead, and bleached to bony whiteness, stands in the center of the old field and from its topmost snag a lark gives voice to a series of pensive, dreamy, flute-like notes. The girl, after listening for some time, resumes the dialogue. “Children, we will climb on the fence and hear what Yellow Vest has to say. I think he is whistling to his wife, who hunts crickets in the broom sedge.” “Maw, tell us what he says?” “‘Love, thou art safe! art safe! I watch for thee! for thee! and babies.’ It is not so much what he says as the way in which he says it.” The feeble voice of the old grandmother calls: “Jeanne, come help your granny;” and placing her dolls in their little beds of sticks, moss and bird feathers, and the little baby in its cradle, the half of a mussel shell, she goes to the house. ————