ter scatter out an' tromp a spell afore they could settle ter spring plowin'. When I hears thet tale, I cools down erbout yer Pa Gladden's perceedin'. Whar war the use o' worritin' over a streak born in one, an' no wuss ner thet? It might hev been suthin' bad. I jes let him go an' tromp." "It is n't anything wrong," agreed Persephone; "if it makes him any happier, I would let him alone."

"Thet hev been my idee," went on Ma Gladden, her eyes on her husband, who had never moved. "It air, indeed, a harmless thing. I can't allers understand yer pa's mind, but it air a master one at connivin' an' contrivin'. Ez to these tromps, he air sorter 'shamed over them, an' uster make excuses. But law! now he slips off afore breakfast, an' Aby Early er Jason er some one comes up ter 'tend stock, an' I waits, allers hopin' an' prayin' thet he wull return safe oncet more."

Persephone's eyes lighted up with a new comprehension. She realized the selfsacrifice, the vigil by night, the straining anxiety by day.

"I wonder if he would go if he knew that," she said to herself. Presently she went down the freshly raked path between the flower borders. The farmer turned with a smile, but he read the wistful question in her eyes.

"Whut air the trouble, my darter?" For answer she leaned against his arm as he sat above her.

"

"Ye air suttinly better-lookin' every day ye live, Persephone," he went on. 'Sence ye air erbout well ag'in, an' hum with us, we 're truly happy. Air thar anything special? Yer see, I am thinkin' erbout steppin' erway fer a few days, an' I warnt ter leave ye ter look arter yer Ma Gladden. She hain't ez young ez she oncet war, if she air spry an' lively."

"Must you go, Pa Gladden?"

"I calkilate I hev ter perceed a leetle onward," he returned, after a silence. "Ye see, I been tryin' ter discipline myself ag'in' thet old wanderin' speerit dwellin' nateral in me when the spring air openin' an' work air pressin'. But it hev oncet more stirred up a fever thet wull not let me be. Suthin' air callin' o' me."

"But do you find what calls you when you go out?" asked the young woman, earnestly.

"Ginerally speakin', I does," said the

farmer, "an' I allers arrives ter revivin' grace, not ter speak o' the quickenin' ter my fancy. my fancy. A good long tromp, an' the plowin' in the south field, air my spring medicine, an' does me more good than any ermount o' yeller dock an' vinegar er saxifrax tea. I war settin' here, jes now, lookin' out at thet yeller sky. Yeller allers hev been my fav'rite color, Persephone. It air the fustest one I remembers, an' 't war my father's color afore me. He uster love ter lay orf erbout his mother, -'Liz'beth Thompson she war, with five brothers ter the Revylutionary War,-jes how his mother uster stand out in the cla'rin' they hed on Little Raccoon Creek in Virginny. Her ha'r war yeller an' thick till her death. All eroun' her feet, like leetle downy yeller chicks, war 'leven childern a-playin'. Thet war shorely a movin' sight, an' must hev got inter the blood. I do love yeller posies, an' skies like thet over thar. Last time but oncet I tromped, I went down east an' a leetle south. It air truly a purty country thar, an' the soil bein' kind, thar hain't no lack o' money. One day I passed afore a big yeller house settin' on a hill, an' thet hev often riz up before me sence. It looked like the brightes' thing on airth ag'in' a blue sky. It hed green shetters an' a giddy-lookin' wire fence runnin' erlong the foot o' the hill. The grass war thick an' short, an' a wide gravel path cut clean eroun' the hill one side an' up ter the porch, thet war shorely a showy thing. But, Persephone, squar' in front of thet house war a tombstun set- a big, thick stun with a name cut in deep." "My!" gasped Persephone. "That is all of a piece with Mr. Ritter's burying his first wife under the parlor window."

"Somewhut," replied the farmer; "but I hev reasoned on it, an' thet idee air nateral. Whut air allers botherin' me war a face I seen ter the upper windy. I could n't see it plain, but it 'peared ter me sort o' implorin'. Ez yer Ma Gladden hev hed occasion ter remark several times in this life, I 'm a soft-hearted old fool when I feels like thar 's any implorin' of me goin' on. Lately I been calkilatin' ter sa'nter down in thet durrection an' ease up my mind. I won't be satisfied till I do, nuther."

"Oh, but this is such a big, wide country. How can you find that place? How can you?"

He patted her arm.

Oncet on a time a feller from up-State brought a basket o' pigeons inter the Valley an' onloosed them leetle birds on Paynter's Knob. They flew eroun' fer a spell, settlin' their minds, an' then made a bee-line fer their hum. How'd they know? Waal, them air the things folks hain't come ter yet. I wull feel the way, thet 's all."

He got down from the stile, and walked beside his adopted daughter up the path that narrowed under the rose-bushes. To his soft, quavering singing she added her fresh, sweeter notes; so that, in the falling darkness, Ma Gladden knew of their coming by the quaint processional:

"The Lord my Shepherd is,

No blighting want I know; By verdant fields and gentlest streams My footsteps ever go."

II

BEHOLD now the vagrant tramping man on the open road and wandering in April woods! Above him burst the maple buds, under his feet the coloring of the skunkcabbage changed into telltale purple. He heard the clucking calls of the newly arrived robins, and wondered delightedly whence, so round and prosperous, came these chipper fellows. He hailed the bees on the first tassels of the willows, and watched for an hour a velvety butterfly emerge from its bark tomb and feebly try its unused wings in the noon sunshine.

Sin and worry and toil were forgotten. Once again Pa Gladden was young, once again free and a child of nature. After he climbed out from the Long Valley, following his mysterious orientation, the whole. world lay before him. The first night he passed at a roadside farm-house, where the young farmer was both curious and garrulous.

"Don't it worry ye none ter leave yer farm-work?"

"Son, when ye air some older, other things wull lay holt on ye besides work." His wife, with a babe over her shoulder, smiled at the stranger.

"I am allers tellin' him he air thinkin' of nothin' but work, work. It makes life hard."

"So it do," assented Pa Gladden; "an' yet, it air jes erbout whut balances us. But

take some time ter smile an' pray, ter love God an' be happy."

The farmer's wife refused his money the next morning. She had a lunch for him in a small tin pail, and watched him on his way.

"I hev an idee," she said shyly, "thet ye air goin' on a dooty. Ye hev thet air. God go with ye! My mother war a religious woman."

The second night he slept at a country road-house, a place he liked much less. The melodious, rhythmical rain fell for hours. It kept him awake, but his meditations were not sad, only tender and reminiscent of long-gone days. For three hours next morning he kept to the beaten road, but, the sun coming up hot and drying the grass, by ten o'clock he again took to the pastures and fields.

To-day the bird world was rampant. Through the woods, now faintly blurred with green, flew and darted and sprang and hopped those songsters which had mated and made homes. They were rapturous in the return of spring. Sweeter than any other sound to his heart was the bluebird's clear and confiding tremolo in the misty aisles of the woodland. Three days he went by road and field, over brambly paths and along creeks and brooks, traveling on patiently. His way was along a dirt road with much woodland on each side and few houses visible. As he went onward, there turned into the road a peddler's wagon with a fine, shiny top. On the high seat sat a jolly red-bearded man with a merry twinkle in his eye.

"Howdy, stranger? Which way you bound?" asked the peddler, stopping his horses.

"Ter the south," replied Pa Gladden; "an' sence ye hev put yer nags' noses in thet durrection, whut wull be the damage fer a leetle lift?"

"By your looks you are good company," replied the peddler, hunching himself over; "so climb over that wheel and go as far along as I am going, anyhow."

Pa Gladden made himself comfortable, and surveyed approvingly the backs of two plump horses.

"I'm out huntin'," he said, "but with my wits an' my tongue instead of with a gun. I'm huntin' an oncommon-lookin' house in these parts thet no man thet sees it air likely ter disremember."

"Thar air a tricky bit o' fence in front," drawled Pa Gladden.

"Even so," laughed the peddler; "and if you will kindly mention a most uncommon ornament to the front premises, I think I can at once match you."

"Precisely," cried Pa Gladden; "it air a tombstun fit fer the buryin' of a governor hisself. It air high an' broad, an' a name air cut thet deep ye kin eenymost read it from the road ez ye pass.”

"You 've called it right off," said the peddler, "and are traveling toward it. That is the old Judy place, but fineified up by the present Mis' Judy under the soopervising of a New Yorruk architect. Where did you come to hear about it? Are you kin to the Judys or to her? I never have heared her maiden name. She was from New Yorruk State."

"I hain't no kin ter the fambly," said Pa Gladden, "but I intend ter visit thar, frien'ly-like."

"Certain ?" queried the peddler, much surprised. "Well, you hain't one of them. big doctors, for they don't travel afoot. Nor a lawyer, for she despises them. Nor a farmer for her ground, beca'se she has got year-tenants on every piece. I can't guess your errant, stranger."

"Jes a-visitin'," said Pa Gladden, pleasantly; "but I don't mind tellin' ye I hev never met Mis' Judy, an' would plumb take it kindly ef ye would onfold a leetle discourse ez ter whut sort o' folks they air."

"There is n't any folks left but old Mis' Judy," replied the peddler, happy to have a tale to tell" only a sick old woman that is might' nigh to her end. Since you don't know her, I will make free to say, stranger, that you want to keep your weather-eye open. She always has been a master hand at money-making and trading, and there are few men that ever come down that hill that she has n't beat someway. I used to trade with her when first I commenced to run a wagon, but she beat me so, I quit turning in there. If Loueller, that half-breed that lives with Mis' Judy, wants anything, she hangs out a towel on the roseb'rybushes, and I blows my horn for her to come down to the gate.'

"Ez I hev nothin' ter buy er ter sell, Mr. Peddler," said Pa Gladden, "this old

pusson wull not likely do me any great damage. Don't ye kerry me past any turnin' leadin' off ter thet yeller house, but jes continny yer tale o' these folks thet I'm ter call on when I do corner up with them."

"I tell you, there is only one old woman left," said the peddler. "The race has run out in short order. The story has been in these parts since the land was settled. They do say that the first Vince Judy killed a man overseas, stole his money, and come to America. To hide himself, he clumb clean over the Blue Ridge, and lit in here erbout as soon as anybody. He was a bad old man, and his son Gilbert was just as bad, but got killed when he was in the Mexican War-but not in battle. The grandson, the last Vince Judy, got the place and the money and his full share of the meanness. He was a hoss man, and all the time had some out on different tracks. Stranger, Vince Judy was a rampin' onbeliever, and had a scorn for 'most everything common folks holds to and lives by. When his niggers were freed, he turned them off the place without clothes or tools or food. He would n't let one of them come back. The white men round his stables were the worst sort. No one thought he would marry, but once he came home from the East with Mis' Judy. She was a clipper-um-um!"

"I suppose I understand ye," put in Pa .Gladden, mildly, "though my lines hev never been laid ermong thet sort o' female pussons."

"If you has a picture in your eye of a reg'lar rip-tearing, rip-snorting sort of female, you understands, old gentleman," said the peddler. "Mis' Judy, when I first seen her, was a sight to remember-one of them sooty-eyed women that have red cheeks, nateral er otherwise, waving black hair, and teeth like chany ones. Sech women-folks are promisin' at first sight, but too keen, er a man would have to go out of business. A man that does business in women's fixin's and the household necessities calkilates on the general run in looking to profits. But Mis' Judy was too smart for me. Take table-linnings, for instance. 'How much for that dozen of fringed reds?' When me, knowing her, would fall to mere nothing, she would jeer at me. 'Yer the thief of the world,' she'd say, 'for I can call you the figure to a

cent that you paid for them at the wholesale house.' And she could, she could, nine times out o' ten. Now that is no way for a man of family to get his living, and as I was n't driving a peddler's wagon round the country for my health, I quit turning in there. But law! the poor woman had to take it out on some one. Vince Judy took it out on her. You see, he thought she was teetotally his, and that is the way some men have of owning things."

"Thet air shorely one view ter take o' merried life," remarked Pa Gladden; "but I believe ye air speakin' with jedgment. Some men looks on thar wives with less o' actooal consarn than they gives ter their cattle."

"He nagged her from dawn till dark," continued the peddler; "he ginerally opened up with the fact, as he stated it, that she come to him empty-handed, and empty-handed she should stay. Well, Vince died onnateral, like the rest. He went over to Lexin'ton to race-meetin', and took three or four hosses. One of them kicked him, and he was brung home on a cot. He never set up once. Mis' Judy nursed him and kept watching. Got thin as a shadder. When he died no one ever did know what happened. She was lying on the floor in a faint, and there was a hundred little bits of paper on the coverlid. She come into everything by an old will made when they were first married. She has n't got a soul to give it to, they. say. Lord! I got seven children and she has n't got one. Curious how some things are divided."

"Does she live there alone?"

"Only a bright woman named Loueller, and the family living in the farm-house. She is about bedrid now-got a mortal disease. So that wicked money has plumb run out. I don't want any of it. Ruther run a peddling-wagon myself than to touch it. Now, stranger, if you strike down the lane we are nigh to, it will bring you into the river road. Keep to your left, and in a quarter of a mile you will see thet Judy house without fail."

"Why did they put thet stun in the front yard?"

"It was in the old will that she stood by. He made it when he was plumb mad jealous. He laid it out in his mind that any man that come to court Mis' Judy after he was gone must pass over his grave

to do it. But there's a saying about more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter, ye know, and Mis' Judy was that ingenious she laid out to stand by the will and get up to the house around the slope. In five years the grass was all grown over the front walk and no trace left. She kept improvin' on and on until she has a place as yeller as a circus. But you will see for yourself."

Bidding his loquacious companion a grateful good-by, Pa Gladden went down a field lane and over a brook. Here he bathed his face and smoothed his thin locks. At last he came before the strangely gay house.

A substantial mansion it had been originally, square, high, and roomy. Upon it had later been superimposed ornate dormerwindows, and at the end of the side wings. were great bays with galleried railings. about them.

He looked earnestly above the pillared portico. Surely a white face looked out once and again, and-yes, truly a hand beckoned.

"I air a man thet hez no wish ter meddle," said Pa Gladden to himself, "but shorely my way air plain."

He walked slowly up the neatly graveled driveway, past beds of blooming crocuses and daffodils. The wide front door was open, and at the side hitching-rails stood a carriage with well-kept horses. Pa Gladden waited a moment at the open door. There seemed to come out of the wall beside him a shrill whistle and the words:

"For God's sake, don't let the doctors carry me away from my home!"

For a moment Pa Gladden was at a loss; then he remembered the speakingtubes Persephone had told him of in the houses of the wealthy.

"One of them new hollerin'-pipes, shorely," he concluded, eying its mouthpiece, "an' runnin' straight up ter Mis' Judy herself. I calkilate I kin make myself beknown ter her thet way."

He cleared his throat, and then called up the tube gently:

"Air I speakin' ter Mis' Judy?" "Yes. Who are you? What do you want?"

"Folks calls me Pa Gladden, ma'am. I air from Long Valley way."

"Pa Gladden ?"

"Yes, 'm-thet air, ter 'most ev'ry pusson down our way."

"Are you a timid man?'

"I don't calkilate I air."

Quickly came the words:

66

Go into the house and make those men go away. They want to take me to a hospital to be operated on. I prefer to die as I am."

Pa Gladden's face was a study. "Waal, I been through some quare things in my time, an' I s'pose thet the grit air still stored up fer this one."

He wiped his dusty feet and entered the wide hall. A confused sound, with now and again a peremptory knock, guided him up the broad and well-carpeted stairway. So absorbed were several persons about a closed and locked door in the upper hall that no one heard him till a travel-stained farmer, hat in hand, stood among them.

66

'Howdy?" he said. "I come to see Mis' Judy."

"She is too ill to attend to any business now," said one of the men.

"This air no business," returned Pa Gladden; "at least, not ez ye calkilate it, my son. Mis' Judy sent fer me, an' dyin' would on'y make it even better fer me ter be nigh 'er."

"A preacher?" asked another man.

"Not a preacher," returned Pa Gladden; "jes a common, every-day farmer. Now, gentlemen, ef ye wull show me the way, I wull leave ye ter yer counsels. Er" -with a wave of the hand-"mebbe this nuss wull kindly obleege me."

"Mrs. Judy is so ill she is not at all herself," said another man, shortly, "and has locked herself into her room there. She will not let any one in."

Pa Gladden wheeled about and looked at the high white door. Above was an open transom guarded by strong iron bars. He turned to face the men again. "So!"

One of the men explained:

"Two of us are doctors who have been in consultation on Mrs. Judy's case. This is her man of business. This is her nurse, who feels that she and her patient should not stay so far from medical aid in so serious a case. We have just decided that it is best for Mrs. Judy to go to a hospital in the city, where she can be taken care of properly."

LXVI.-75

"I understands, gentlemen," said Pa Gladden, "thet in yer own minds ye air doin' the best thing; but, gentlemen, this air Mis' Judy's hum. I need n't ast ye all jes whut she hev said ter ye❞—here he stepped backward and placed himself in front of the door; "but she air old an' dyin', an', like many old an' sick folks, would shorely ruther die at hum than ter hev any sort o' tinkerin' done ter her thet may let her live a leetle while longer. I am suttin, gentlemen, thet Mis' Judy thanks ye fer yer improvin' thorts, but she hain't desirin', none whutever, ter be moved ter a hospital."

"How do you know?" asked the lawyer, red and vexed.

Pa Gladden cast upon him a look of reproach.

"She hev told me thet fac'," he asserted.

"What right have you to mix in this?” fumed the man. "Mrs. Judy has no living relatives-I mean, that we know of at the present."

"It won't do fer ye ter be suttin sure jes whar her kin will crop up," said Pa Gladden. "Them thar fambly trees hez lots o' sprangly branches shootin' out here an' thar. Now it air shorely an onpossible contrivin', gentlemen, thet ye kin kerry a rich woman, onwullin', outen her own house ter a hospital, er any sech place, 'thout the papers. S'pose we a'journ this meetin' till ye gits them in proper shape, an' in the meantime, ef darter here, who hez a good face an' nice eyes-wull stay erlong with Mis' Judy, I 'll help find some one else ter be comp'ny an' cheer her up. An', gentlemen, ez ye air mos' prubable goin' straight back ter the city, jes look in on Dr. Torrence, ez I calls Elder Torrence, an' ast him erbout yer old Pa Gladden o' the Crossroads settlement. He wull entirely enlighten yer mind ez ter whuther Mis' Judy air in safe an' hones' hands, an' any promises kep'. Mis' Judy don't expect ter stir from here, but ter be peaceful an' let alone plumb ter the end."

He sat down upon a chair by the door and as benignly as ever regarded the consultation of the three men at the lower end of the hall.

"Let 'em argify all they want," said Pa Gladden, cheerfully, to the nurse. “I calkilate thet Mis' Judy hain't goin' ter open up thet door till I say so, an' I 'll set here