CHAPTER XIII.“I’m to be your neighbor for the winter,” he said. “My experience as house-keeper is limited. I set up my Lares and Penates to-day and forgot that man must eat. Will you sell me bread and fresh eggs?”“Lares and Penates,” both Eliza and Beth knew the meaning of those words. Roman mythology! A strange tramp, indeed, who could quote this.“Will you come in?” asked Eliza. Tramp or not, his clear gray eyes were too fine and commanding to permit his being kept outside the door.He entered and took the proffered seat before the grate in which a few chunks of wood were smoldering.“These wood-fires are delightful,” he said. “I do not wonder that the age of poetry and romance have passed away. It was one with the open grate. What mind of man can conceive of poetry being written before a register or radiator?”Eliza had nothing to say to this. The conversation was not just what she expected from a tramp. She went to the kitchen and counted out the eggs and took a loaf of fresh bread from the box. She was sorry for the man. He looked so fine and interesting. It was to be regretted that he allowed himself to be a wanderer. Miss Eliza felt a sense of duty. It grieved her to see one who appeared so bright and attractive waste his life wandering upon the earth. When she heard him sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she had thought him a young man. There was the joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was not a boy, but a man fully her own age. She prepared his basket for him, while her heart was heavy.He arose when she re-entered the living-room and extended his hand for the basket, at the same time laying out a dollar upon the table.Miss Eliza was surprised. “I—I—did not think of pay,” she stammered.“Surely,” he said. “You do not think that I came up to beg. While we are on the subject, I’d like to settle about getting milk, eggs and bread regularly from you. I should like plenty of them. I find they are about the only reliable things one can find in tramping over the country. All cooks are not like our blessed Yankee ones.”“You intend to stay about here?”“Until spring is fairly settled. I’ve a little place down here in the woods. I’m sure that I shall be mighty comfortable there all winter. When the weather permits, I suppose I’ll wander forth again to find new experiences. When the wanderlust takes possession of one—” He waved his hand as though the subject were not worth continuing.“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza. “You look so well and strong, I should think you would settle down to some useful work. You don’t look a bit like a tramp.”“Ah—a—h,” the word came from the stranger’s lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a smile. He controlled himself, however, and said, “But what a gay life it is! One can see so much—now as to the eggs and milk.”Miss Eliza promised that he could get them daily.“My name is Hillis,” he said. Again the amused expression came to him. “Even a tramp must have a name, you know.”He was gone, leaving Miss Eliza wondering what strange circumstance made such a man a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Thereafter he came every morning for milk. During the week, he had fresh bread and eggs. He always paid for them as he received them.In personal appearance he was the most exquisite tramp that Eliza had ever seen. She laid it down to the fact that her acquaintance in the line had been limited. He always sang or whistled as he came up the hill, and after a while, Eliza found herself expecting him at a regular time in the morning and listening for the song which never failed. Such songs as they were! She could not have believed that words and air could be so exquisitely sweet. The tears actually came to her eyes when she heard, for the first time, his voice ringing through the woods:“I hear you calling me.Through all the years, dear one,I hear you calling me.”One afternoon as he was passing, he paused to speak to Miss Eliza, who was plucking the last of her chrysanthemums.“You should see them in Japan,” he said. “We cannot raise them here as the Japanese do. There’s something lacking, either in our skill or our soil. You should see the real Japanese flower.”He continued in this strain for some time, during which Miss Eliza learned about soils, and chemical compounds and fertilization. She had lived among farmers all her life, but never realized that in the fields lay a study for a lifetime, and that the soil needed as scientific treatment as a child. It was to be fed, to be rested, to be worked, all with judgment and science. All this, she learned from the tramp. She attributed his knowledge to the fact that he had traveled widely, and being naturally of a keen mind, had picked up information from all parts of the globe.During the winter, he fell into the habit of bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened a new world to her—a world of flowers and sunshine; the world where the artist soul expresses itself in making the world beautiful in color and form. He sometimes lingered to explain some plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes. Sometimes she took part in the conversation. Once she laughingly said in connection with some story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy story Adee told me when I was a little girl.”“Tell it to me,” he said, seating himself by the fireside. “I fancy Miss Eliza would have a story worth telling.”For some reason which she could not explain, Eliza’s face grew crimson at something in his voice, rather than his words, and hurriedly excused herself and went into the kitchen.“Adee always told me stories when I was little. Because she had never read any children’s stories, she had to make them up.”Beth began the story of the poppy, and the “tramp” listened with interest. When she had finished, he said simply, “Tell me more that Miss Eliza told you.”Beth was only too glad to do so. She began at once. Eliza was back in the room before she had finished.“Where did you get such fairy-tales?” asked the tramp. “I’ve read all that ever came in book form, but I missed these.”Eliza tapped her forehead. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you think it was a pleasure to get them out?”“Have you written them?” It was surprising how concise, how direct the tramp could be when he chose.“Write them? I never thought of such a thing. I made up the stories simply to please Beth. I am not an author.”“You don’t know what you are,” he said. “You have never found yourself, Miss Eliza. No one knows how great a thing he may be. In each soul lies an unexplored country. Be a Columbus to your own soul.”He took up his hat and moved to the door. “I want you to write down these stories Beth told me. Don’t bother trying to make them fine. Scribble them. This is not a request, Miss Eliza. This is a command.”Eliza had no time to remonstrate. The tramp was gone before she could reply.“I would do it, Adee.” Beth smiled whimsically to herself and added, as she did when she was a baby, “Please, pretty lady.”It was impossible to withstand both of these. Eliza began the very next day when Beth was away at school. She took tablet and pencil and, sitting down by the open grate, wrote just as she had told the stories to Beth. There was no attempt at fine writing. Her language was simple as a child’s. There were even quite serious mistakes in grammar and punctuation. The hours passed quickly. Beth was home from school before Eliza realized it. She had been happy all afternoon—happy in a different way from what she had been all these years.“I am expressing myself. I am finding my own soul,” she told herself. She smiled at her own egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus, I should find a great undiscovered country?”She laid the stories away. What simple little things they were! The story of an ambitious little seed which was unhappy because it had been tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in the ground. It wanted to do something great. It did not wish to hide from life and light. But as the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a life of whose beauty it had no conception. It cast shade and perfume on all about it. It burst in a hundred glorious flowers. Then it learned that its own way would have made it a failure, that there is something in one which must suffer and die before one can be a power.The following afternoon she wrote again. There was little chance of interruption, for neighbors were at a distance, and the people of Shintown did not give themselves to bodily exertion.One evening she handed them to the tramp when he came for his evening supply of milk and eggs.“Quite a package,” he said. “Is this all you can think of, or have you more in that head of yours?”“More! My head has turned into a veritable widow’s cruse. The instant I take out one story, another one slips in to take its place. I do not know where they come from. I am sure I do not try to think of them. They just pop in.”“Let them pop, and keep on writing,” replied the man. “I came across several books I think you’d like, and a magazine article on the possibilities of the so-called worked out farm.”He laid them on the table, took up his milk-pail and went his way down the slope. His voice rang out clear and strong:“Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I’ll not ask for wine.”“I wonder where he found all his songs. Hundreds of them I think I’ve heard him sing this winter.”“He must have picked them up tramping about,” said Beth.Moving to the table, Eliza took up the books and magazines which he had left her. The book was one on the wild flowers and weeds of the Alleghanies. It was handsomely illustrated and most comprehensive, dealing with their medicinal as well as floral values.“It’s written by Joseph Barnes Hillis,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that it should be the same name as the tramp’s? The article in the magazine is by the same writer. How strange! I’ll—”She did not finish the sentence, for Sam Houston and old Squire Stout entered without knocking—one of the irregularities of social convention in the locality.“Good evening, folks,” said Sam. “Eliza, I’ve come over on strange business. It’s queer how things do happen.”The squire took the most comfortable seat in the room and leaned back in his chair. “It’s certainly a most curious circumstance,” he said. He opened his coat and took from his pocket a weather-beaten, worn old leather purse.
CHAPTER XIII.“I’m to be your neighbor for the winter,” he said. “My experience as house-keeper is limited. I set up my Lares and Penates to-day and forgot that man must eat. Will you sell me bread and fresh eggs?”“Lares and Penates,” both Eliza and Beth knew the meaning of those words. Roman mythology! A strange tramp, indeed, who could quote this.“Will you come in?” asked Eliza. Tramp or not, his clear gray eyes were too fine and commanding to permit his being kept outside the door.He entered and took the proffered seat before the grate in which a few chunks of wood were smoldering.“These wood-fires are delightful,” he said. “I do not wonder that the age of poetry and romance have passed away. It was one with the open grate. What mind of man can conceive of poetry being written before a register or radiator?”Eliza had nothing to say to this. The conversation was not just what she expected from a tramp. She went to the kitchen and counted out the eggs and took a loaf of fresh bread from the box. She was sorry for the man. He looked so fine and interesting. It was to be regretted that he allowed himself to be a wanderer. Miss Eliza felt a sense of duty. It grieved her to see one who appeared so bright and attractive waste his life wandering upon the earth. When she heard him sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she had thought him a young man. There was the joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was not a boy, but a man fully her own age. She prepared his basket for him, while her heart was heavy.He arose when she re-entered the living-room and extended his hand for the basket, at the same time laying out a dollar upon the table.Miss Eliza was surprised. “I—I—did not think of pay,” she stammered.“Surely,” he said. “You do not think that I came up to beg. While we are on the subject, I’d like to settle about getting milk, eggs and bread regularly from you. I should like plenty of them. I find they are about the only reliable things one can find in tramping over the country. All cooks are not like our blessed Yankee ones.”“You intend to stay about here?”“Until spring is fairly settled. I’ve a little place down here in the woods. I’m sure that I shall be mighty comfortable there all winter. When the weather permits, I suppose I’ll wander forth again to find new experiences. When the wanderlust takes possession of one—” He waved his hand as though the subject were not worth continuing.“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza. “You look so well and strong, I should think you would settle down to some useful work. You don’t look a bit like a tramp.”“Ah—a—h,” the word came from the stranger’s lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a smile. He controlled himself, however, and said, “But what a gay life it is! One can see so much—now as to the eggs and milk.”Miss Eliza promised that he could get them daily.“My name is Hillis,” he said. Again the amused expression came to him. “Even a tramp must have a name, you know.”He was gone, leaving Miss Eliza wondering what strange circumstance made such a man a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Thereafter he came every morning for milk. During the week, he had fresh bread and eggs. He always paid for them as he received them.In personal appearance he was the most exquisite tramp that Eliza had ever seen. She laid it down to the fact that her acquaintance in the line had been limited. He always sang or whistled as he came up the hill, and after a while, Eliza found herself expecting him at a regular time in the morning and listening for the song which never failed. Such songs as they were! She could not have believed that words and air could be so exquisitely sweet. The tears actually came to her eyes when she heard, for the first time, his voice ringing through the woods:“I hear you calling me.Through all the years, dear one,I hear you calling me.”One afternoon as he was passing, he paused to speak to Miss Eliza, who was plucking the last of her chrysanthemums.“You should see them in Japan,” he said. “We cannot raise them here as the Japanese do. There’s something lacking, either in our skill or our soil. You should see the real Japanese flower.”He continued in this strain for some time, during which Miss Eliza learned about soils, and chemical compounds and fertilization. She had lived among farmers all her life, but never realized that in the fields lay a study for a lifetime, and that the soil needed as scientific treatment as a child. It was to be fed, to be rested, to be worked, all with judgment and science. All this, she learned from the tramp. She attributed his knowledge to the fact that he had traveled widely, and being naturally of a keen mind, had picked up information from all parts of the globe.During the winter, he fell into the habit of bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened a new world to her—a world of flowers and sunshine; the world where the artist soul expresses itself in making the world beautiful in color and form. He sometimes lingered to explain some plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes. Sometimes she took part in the conversation. Once she laughingly said in connection with some story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy story Adee told me when I was a little girl.”“Tell it to me,” he said, seating himself by the fireside. “I fancy Miss Eliza would have a story worth telling.”For some reason which she could not explain, Eliza’s face grew crimson at something in his voice, rather than his words, and hurriedly excused herself and went into the kitchen.“Adee always told me stories when I was little. Because she had never read any children’s stories, she had to make them up.”Beth began the story of the poppy, and the “tramp” listened with interest. When she had finished, he said simply, “Tell me more that Miss Eliza told you.”Beth was only too glad to do so. She began at once. Eliza was back in the room before she had finished.“Where did you get such fairy-tales?” asked the tramp. “I’ve read all that ever came in book form, but I missed these.”Eliza tapped her forehead. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you think it was a pleasure to get them out?”“Have you written them?” It was surprising how concise, how direct the tramp could be when he chose.“Write them? I never thought of such a thing. I made up the stories simply to please Beth. I am not an author.”“You don’t know what you are,” he said. “You have never found yourself, Miss Eliza. No one knows how great a thing he may be. In each soul lies an unexplored country. Be a Columbus to your own soul.”He took up his hat and moved to the door. “I want you to write down these stories Beth told me. Don’t bother trying to make them fine. Scribble them. This is not a request, Miss Eliza. This is a command.”Eliza had no time to remonstrate. The tramp was gone before she could reply.“I would do it, Adee.” Beth smiled whimsically to herself and added, as she did when she was a baby, “Please, pretty lady.”It was impossible to withstand both of these. Eliza began the very next day when Beth was away at school. She took tablet and pencil and, sitting down by the open grate, wrote just as she had told the stories to Beth. There was no attempt at fine writing. Her language was simple as a child’s. There were even quite serious mistakes in grammar and punctuation. The hours passed quickly. Beth was home from school before Eliza realized it. She had been happy all afternoon—happy in a different way from what she had been all these years.“I am expressing myself. I am finding my own soul,” she told herself. She smiled at her own egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus, I should find a great undiscovered country?”She laid the stories away. What simple little things they were! The story of an ambitious little seed which was unhappy because it had been tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in the ground. It wanted to do something great. It did not wish to hide from life and light. But as the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a life of whose beauty it had no conception. It cast shade and perfume on all about it. It burst in a hundred glorious flowers. Then it learned that its own way would have made it a failure, that there is something in one which must suffer and die before one can be a power.The following afternoon she wrote again. There was little chance of interruption, for neighbors were at a distance, and the people of Shintown did not give themselves to bodily exertion.One evening she handed them to the tramp when he came for his evening supply of milk and eggs.“Quite a package,” he said. “Is this all you can think of, or have you more in that head of yours?”“More! My head has turned into a veritable widow’s cruse. The instant I take out one story, another one slips in to take its place. I do not know where they come from. I am sure I do not try to think of them. They just pop in.”“Let them pop, and keep on writing,” replied the man. “I came across several books I think you’d like, and a magazine article on the possibilities of the so-called worked out farm.”He laid them on the table, took up his milk-pail and went his way down the slope. His voice rang out clear and strong:“Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I’ll not ask for wine.”“I wonder where he found all his songs. Hundreds of them I think I’ve heard him sing this winter.”“He must have picked them up tramping about,” said Beth.Moving to the table, Eliza took up the books and magazines which he had left her. The book was one on the wild flowers and weeds of the Alleghanies. It was handsomely illustrated and most comprehensive, dealing with their medicinal as well as floral values.“It’s written by Joseph Barnes Hillis,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that it should be the same name as the tramp’s? The article in the magazine is by the same writer. How strange! I’ll—”She did not finish the sentence, for Sam Houston and old Squire Stout entered without knocking—one of the irregularities of social convention in the locality.“Good evening, folks,” said Sam. “Eliza, I’ve come over on strange business. It’s queer how things do happen.”The squire took the most comfortable seat in the room and leaned back in his chair. “It’s certainly a most curious circumstance,” he said. He opened his coat and took from his pocket a weather-beaten, worn old leather purse.
“I’m to be your neighbor for the winter,” he said. “My experience as house-keeper is limited. I set up my Lares and Penates to-day and forgot that man must eat. Will you sell me bread and fresh eggs?”
“Lares and Penates,” both Eliza and Beth knew the meaning of those words. Roman mythology! A strange tramp, indeed, who could quote this.
“Will you come in?” asked Eliza. Tramp or not, his clear gray eyes were too fine and commanding to permit his being kept outside the door.
He entered and took the proffered seat before the grate in which a few chunks of wood were smoldering.
“These wood-fires are delightful,” he said. “I do not wonder that the age of poetry and romance have passed away. It was one with the open grate. What mind of man can conceive of poetry being written before a register or radiator?”
Eliza had nothing to say to this. The conversation was not just what she expected from a tramp. She went to the kitchen and counted out the eggs and took a loaf of fresh bread from the box. She was sorry for the man. He looked so fine and interesting. It was to be regretted that he allowed himself to be a wanderer. Miss Eliza felt a sense of duty. It grieved her to see one who appeared so bright and attractive waste his life wandering upon the earth. When she heard him sing and whistle in the woods that afternoon, she had thought him a young man. There was the joyousness and buoyancy of youth in his looks and voice. To-night, however, she saw that he was not a boy, but a man fully her own age. She prepared his basket for him, while her heart was heavy.
He arose when she re-entered the living-room and extended his hand for the basket, at the same time laying out a dollar upon the table.
Miss Eliza was surprised. “I—I—did not think of pay,” she stammered.
“Surely,” he said. “You do not think that I came up to beg. While we are on the subject, I’d like to settle about getting milk, eggs and bread regularly from you. I should like plenty of them. I find they are about the only reliable things one can find in tramping over the country. All cooks are not like our blessed Yankee ones.”
“You intend to stay about here?”
“Until spring is fairly settled. I’ve a little place down here in the woods. I’m sure that I shall be mighty comfortable there all winter. When the weather permits, I suppose I’ll wander forth again to find new experiences. When the wanderlust takes possession of one—” He waved his hand as though the subject were not worth continuing.
“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza. “You look so well and strong, I should think you would settle down to some useful work. You don’t look a bit like a tramp.”
“Ah—a—h,” the word came from the stranger’s lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a smile. He controlled himself, however, and said, “But what a gay life it is! One can see so much—now as to the eggs and milk.”
Miss Eliza promised that he could get them daily.
“My name is Hillis,” he said. Again the amused expression came to him. “Even a tramp must have a name, you know.”
He was gone, leaving Miss Eliza wondering what strange circumstance made such a man a wanderer upon the face of the earth. Thereafter he came every morning for milk. During the week, he had fresh bread and eggs. He always paid for them as he received them.
In personal appearance he was the most exquisite tramp that Eliza had ever seen. She laid it down to the fact that her acquaintance in the line had been limited. He always sang or whistled as he came up the hill, and after a while, Eliza found herself expecting him at a regular time in the morning and listening for the song which never failed. Such songs as they were! She could not have believed that words and air could be so exquisitely sweet. The tears actually came to her eyes when she heard, for the first time, his voice ringing through the woods:
“I hear you calling me.Through all the years, dear one,I hear you calling me.”
“I hear you calling me.Through all the years, dear one,I hear you calling me.”
“I hear you calling me.
Through all the years, dear one,
I hear you calling me.”
One afternoon as he was passing, he paused to speak to Miss Eliza, who was plucking the last of her chrysanthemums.
“You should see them in Japan,” he said. “We cannot raise them here as the Japanese do. There’s something lacking, either in our skill or our soil. You should see the real Japanese flower.”
He continued in this strain for some time, during which Miss Eliza learned about soils, and chemical compounds and fertilization. She had lived among farmers all her life, but never realized that in the fields lay a study for a lifetime, and that the soil needed as scientific treatment as a child. It was to be fed, to be rested, to be worked, all with judgment and science. All this, she learned from the tramp. She attributed his knowledge to the fact that he had traveled widely, and being naturally of a keen mind, had picked up information from all parts of the globe.
During the winter, he fell into the habit of bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened a new world to her—a world of flowers and sunshine; the world where the artist soul expresses itself in making the world beautiful in color and form. He sometimes lingered to explain some plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes. Sometimes she took part in the conversation. Once she laughingly said in connection with some story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy story Adee told me when I was a little girl.”
“Tell it to me,” he said, seating himself by the fireside. “I fancy Miss Eliza would have a story worth telling.”
For some reason which she could not explain, Eliza’s face grew crimson at something in his voice, rather than his words, and hurriedly excused herself and went into the kitchen.
“Adee always told me stories when I was little. Because she had never read any children’s stories, she had to make them up.”
Beth began the story of the poppy, and the “tramp” listened with interest. When she had finished, he said simply, “Tell me more that Miss Eliza told you.”
Beth was only too glad to do so. She began at once. Eliza was back in the room before she had finished.
“Where did you get such fairy-tales?” asked the tramp. “I’ve read all that ever came in book form, but I missed these.”
Eliza tapped her forehead. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you think it was a pleasure to get them out?”
“Have you written them?” It was surprising how concise, how direct the tramp could be when he chose.
“Write them? I never thought of such a thing. I made up the stories simply to please Beth. I am not an author.”
“You don’t know what you are,” he said. “You have never found yourself, Miss Eliza. No one knows how great a thing he may be. In each soul lies an unexplored country. Be a Columbus to your own soul.”
He took up his hat and moved to the door. “I want you to write down these stories Beth told me. Don’t bother trying to make them fine. Scribble them. This is not a request, Miss Eliza. This is a command.”
Eliza had no time to remonstrate. The tramp was gone before she could reply.
“I would do it, Adee.” Beth smiled whimsically to herself and added, as she did when she was a baby, “Please, pretty lady.”
It was impossible to withstand both of these. Eliza began the very next day when Beth was away at school. She took tablet and pencil and, sitting down by the open grate, wrote just as she had told the stories to Beth. There was no attempt at fine writing. Her language was simple as a child’s. There were even quite serious mistakes in grammar and punctuation. The hours passed quickly. Beth was home from school before Eliza realized it. She had been happy all afternoon—happy in a different way from what she had been all these years.
“I am expressing myself. I am finding my own soul,” she told herself. She smiled at her own egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus, I should find a great undiscovered country?”
She laid the stories away. What simple little things they were! The story of an ambitious little seed which was unhappy because it had been tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in the ground. It wanted to do something great. It did not wish to hide from life and light. But as the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a life of whose beauty it had no conception. It cast shade and perfume on all about it. It burst in a hundred glorious flowers. Then it learned that its own way would have made it a failure, that there is something in one which must suffer and die before one can be a power.
The following afternoon she wrote again. There was little chance of interruption, for neighbors were at a distance, and the people of Shintown did not give themselves to bodily exertion.
One evening she handed them to the tramp when he came for his evening supply of milk and eggs.
“Quite a package,” he said. “Is this all you can think of, or have you more in that head of yours?”
“More! My head has turned into a veritable widow’s cruse. The instant I take out one story, another one slips in to take its place. I do not know where they come from. I am sure I do not try to think of them. They just pop in.”
“Let them pop, and keep on writing,” replied the man. “I came across several books I think you’d like, and a magazine article on the possibilities of the so-called worked out farm.”
He laid them on the table, took up his milk-pail and went his way down the slope. His voice rang out clear and strong:
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I’ll not ask for wine.”
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I’ll not ask for wine.”
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I’ll not ask for wine.”
And I’ll not ask for wine.”
“I wonder where he found all his songs. Hundreds of them I think I’ve heard him sing this winter.”
“He must have picked them up tramping about,” said Beth.
Moving to the table, Eliza took up the books and magazines which he had left her. The book was one on the wild flowers and weeds of the Alleghanies. It was handsomely illustrated and most comprehensive, dealing with their medicinal as well as floral values.
“It’s written by Joseph Barnes Hillis,” she said. “Isn’t it strange that it should be the same name as the tramp’s? The article in the magazine is by the same writer. How strange! I’ll—”
She did not finish the sentence, for Sam Houston and old Squire Stout entered without knocking—one of the irregularities of social convention in the locality.
“Good evening, folks,” said Sam. “Eliza, I’ve come over on strange business. It’s queer how things do happen.”
The squire took the most comfortable seat in the room and leaned back in his chair. “It’s certainly a most curious circumstance,” he said. He opened his coat and took from his pocket a weather-beaten, worn old leather purse.