T

HE farm kitchen was dark and empty in the dusk of the November evening. Pa Gladden slipped off his heavy boots inside the door, and shuffled across the floor in his carpet slippers toward another that led into the log part of the house. Out of that door flared great and warm glows that rose and fell unevenly. Out of it also came a song that stirred the very heartstrings of Pa Gladden:

"I did n't know that you knew that old song, Pa Gladden," cried Persephone from her wooden rocker and over a pair of woolen socks she was darning. "My mother used to sing it, and she heard it from her grandmother."

"I hed clean forgotten it myself ontil ye struck up," beamed Pa Gladden, "but my own grandmother-she thet war from over the seas-she uster sing thet song an' lots o' others thet air jes lyin' sleepin' in me, I s'pose. It war in the air anyhow, Persephone. The bitter cold air comin'

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airly this year. I got the feel o' the north ter-night. Thet never fools me like other signs. An' the fire air inspirin', Persephone. I do like ter see ye settin' whar my mother uster set; actoolly I do."

The winter before, with the rescue of Persephone Riggs from penury and slander, there had been rekindled the ancient hearth fire of the Gladden homestead. Black had been the rough stone hearth for twenty years until that bitter midnight when Pa Gladden and Doc. Briskett

brought in a most pitiful wreck of a

woman. There was no stove in the seldom-used "off room," the log nucleus about which the rest of the brown house had been built, but Pa Gladden was determined to install Persephone there. Strong hands tore out the fireboard and built high a glorious blaze that warmed the very cockles of Pa Gladden's heart. To her dying day Persephone will associate her rescue with the glories of a wide, crackling wood fire and the coming up of a broad and generous warmth. In the days that followed, when she lay broken in spirit and health on the wooden settle that had been Pa Gladden's mother's, the hearth fire was often her only company and solace. Into its deep and roseate glows she looked and sorrowed. By its soaring light Pa Gladden poured forth his comforting philosophies in the evening hours. Soon the hearth fire became inseparably connected with Persephone's presence in the Gladden homestead, and to its warmth and light the farmer always hurried.

Pa now cleared his throat and assumed

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a careless tone that did not for a moment deceive his listener as he went on:

"I've cornered ye up now ter tell ye a bit o' good news, Persephone. Yer debt. over ter Sinai thet we all took on ourselves hez been paid up. Ye hev heared thet movin' story o' leetle Billy, whut spent some time with we-all. Waal, I promised Elder Torrence then thet when I found a sufferin' fellow-creetur I 'd let him know erbout it, an' he 'd make a thank-offerin'. Ye kin thank leetle Billy fer yer total freedom, my darter. An' may God bless ye an' keep ye safe till yer life's end!"

Persephone's face grew rosy. She was yet frail and worn. A cough had racked her all summer, despite Ma Gladden's 'yarb" teas and Doc Briskett's tonics.

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"Thar air more ter say, my darter. Ye air ter go away from us fer a leetle spell, till ye gits over thet deep cough on yer lungs. Ye air ter go with the elder, an' with leetle Billy an' his ma, down ter whar it's warm an' all the flowers air growin' now. We all hev 'ranged it fer ye. An' later-later on-when ye 're well, ye kin come back here, er stay erway, jes wharever ye kin be the happies', Persephone."

"But I do not want to go among strangers," sobbed Persephone, completely

Pa Gladden, I do not want to go away!"

"Ef yer heart tells ye so, Persephone. When ye 've been away an' hev seen many furriners an' furrin doin's, then ef ye still warnts ter come back, we 're a-waitin' fer ye at the old place. But don't ye bind yerself down ter nothin'. Young ye air, an' ef ye hed half a chance ye 'd still be good-lookin'. Ye don't know jes whut air waitin' ter give ye a welcomin' hand out en the big wide world. Don't ye say any rash words now, 'cause yer Ma Gladden an' me hev got a lot o' feelin' on the subjec'. Says Elder Torrence ter me, 'Whut more kin I do fer ye, Pa Gladden?' An' says I, 'Jes conjur' up suthin' ter git our Persephone well ag'in an' I 'm in yer debt.' Says he, 'I wull try, fer I owe ye our leetle Billy, ye know.' 'No,' says I; 'no, elder; ye owe thet restorin' o' yer boy ter the onspeakable marcy o' yer Maker; an' I hope a leetle o' thet wull be extended over our way so ez ter fix up our 'dopted darter's bad cough.' Now don't ye dissolve yerself inter tears over them fac's, but jes tell me whar air yer Ma Gladden."

Persephone looked up with a startled inquiry.

"Has she gone out again? I did n't know it. She has been worrying all day over her white turkey. It was gone a long time yesterday, but was here awhile this morning. I never have seen Ma Gladden quite so worried over anything, pa."

Now, leetle woman, don't ye fret! Why, when I went arter ye thet night, I got so plumb wrought up thet I kind o' 'dopted ye; an' sence ye hev been here we 're wonderful 'livened. We hed truly been sorter lonesome sence we hed Mary Hebbs a spell, an' then leetle Billy; and sometimes ma an' me hev talked over the foolishes' things we war goin' ter do when the Lord sent us a leetle better crops. Ye kin shorely come back here ef ye want ter come. But, really now, not wishin' ter be imperlite, we all jes must send ye away a spell."

"I can come back if I want to?" asked Persephone, still clinging to Pa Gladden's arm. Can I come back to both of you?"

aigs at a truly ridic'lous price. I hed heared thet white turkeys wull stay on the premises. But this last fancy fowl she raised hez been a gadder from the shell. We hev fotched it from Leetle Dutch an' from four mile over toward Sinai. Every one knows thet big turkey, an' when we 're ridin' erlong, I al'ays hez the feelin' nowadays thet, ef I am goin' ter church er ter market, every livin' human I meets considers me ez goin' ter hunt up Ma Gladden's white turkey.

Gimme a leetle hot tea er suthin', my gal, an' I 'll purceed ter put on my boots an' hunt after Ma Gladden myself. I've done it in years gone by, but o' late she hain't been so giddy-like an' hez stayed in o' nights."

Persephone quickly obeyed. When she lighted the kitchen lamp she was amazed at the great gravity of the farmer's face. As she poured the tea she took courage to say:

She has not been gone over an hour, Pa Gladden, at the outside. You surely are not worried-are you, dear pa?"

The small man gulped down his tea before he answered. Then he took his red comforter from its nail.

"Wull ye mind me now ef I tell ye suthin', Persephone? Ye stay right here, an' ye keep up fires an' hev hot things ready. It air a dark night, an' it air turnin' bitter cold fast. The feel o' the north air's in me, an' it says trouble ter me. I been tryin' ter throw it off all day, but it hev struck me all of a heap ter find yer Ma Gladden gone out."

"What can I do?" cried Persephone. "Cannot I hunt? Oh, cannot I do something, too?"

Pa Gladden lighted his lantern with fingers that shook, but he tried to speak calmly:

"Sho! She mebbe air right outside now -er a leetle way on ter the barn. It war the foolishes' thing fer her ter go out. It air comin' on ter sleet er ter snow. Keep up the fires an' pray, darter-pray ter yer Maker."

II

SCARCELY had Pa Gladden stepped outside the door when there closed in upon him those invisible forces of the night and the air that wholly confound a human being. The metal and glass of his puny light at once felt the multitudinous blows of the frost-flakes-that cold and pitiless sleet peculiar to early winter storms. Swirling currents blew fiercely from the four points of the compass, and, raging against each other, seemed to combat, in unison, this sorely troubled man. The west wind carried with it a sullen roar as from an angry sea, and it died away with a great moan as it passed onward through the gap in the hills toward Sinai. The north wind carried the sound of tremendous sighing, the protest of huge pines and old trees high on Olive Hill and Marrowbone against the first onslaught of winter storms. Pa Gladden recognized these sounds, but he also knew that never before had they seemed so loud and so fierce; never had they pre

dicted so wild a November night as this one promised to be.

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Shorely Drusilly could not hev gone fur," he kept repeating to himself, “an' I don't jes know whar ter turn. Turkeys never leaves no clue ter their travels. She hev never meant ter go fur; but the dark hez caught 'er somewhar-the dark an' the storm."

Only his habit and an actual instinct turned him again and again in the right direction. He could not see a hand'sbreadth ahead of him. The winds twisted and swung him; the sleet blinded him, and struck so sharply at his light that he finally covered it over and over with his red comforter and went onward in the black, baffling, combating darkness. On all sides pressed the wild winds, the formless void. God! Whar air my Drusilly?"

His knees struck suddenly against tall snapping weeds. He was out of his narrow pathway. He pulled off his stout yarn mitten with his teeth, thrust it into a deep pocket, and felt like a blind man to right and to left. Thus he kept his path over the slope. Sometimes the wind sounds made his heart almost stand still, for in them there seemed cries, shrieks, moans, and even fragments of deep execrations that were flung at him from every direction.

He was going over to the great barn, as a mere chance. The big and splendid bird that had for a year been at once Ma Gladden's pride and anxiety had but once condescended to appear at the barn door. Pa Gladden always associated that time with disaster, as he lost one of his best cows the same day. He could but think of the strange picture the fowl made in the brilliant sunlight as it stood in the barn doorway, big, portentous, solemn, dazzlingly white, while the poor animal moaned out its life in the straw of the stall. Many times after that, when the great turkey strutted alone in the autumn pastures, the sun making it a sight almost magnificent, Pa Gladden would shudder and shake his head. Alone the bird wandered, proudly disdainful of its darker and smaller brethren, and never condescending to notice any human being but Ma Gladden, who fed and petted it.

The great barn gave Pa Gladden no comfort to-night. Once reached, he crept about it, rapidly making the entire circuit, and calling loudly, although the winds