spring and fall cleaning the postmaster's sister, Satira Pegrim, a bustling widow of forty, came down from her little hill farm to officiate. Why she did not stay on and keep house for her brother had been a subject of much speculation during the year after the baby Marygold had followed her young mother. But though Gilbert said nothing, they came to understand that without the child to care for there was not sufficient work to keep in check Mrs. Pegrim's nervous energy, which found vent in a species of incessant reminiscent sympathy that poor Gilbert could not bear.

When the only love of a silent man's life comes upon him when he is nearly forty, fairly sweeping him from his feet, and in less than three years wife and the child just forming her first words are snatched away, leaving him deaf at heart, work is the only consoler that can gain even his ear. So Gilbert had baked and swept and garnished, kept the geraniums and the calla lilies and pink flowering "Gypsey" in the windows, and a white spread upon the bed, and the hooded mahogany cradle-cover of pink and white basket-pattern patchwork, as it had been during those years.

As Gilbert added an armful of wood to the fire in the cooking stove that was set in the wide chimney place, and opened the iron door of the brick oven at the side, the bright light threw against the opposite wall his somewhat remarkable silhouette. He was fully six feet tall with close-cut, iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and long, gray beard that reached his waist, and so frequently got in his way that he twisted it up and fastened it under his chin with an elastic band, or hairpin, as upon the present occasion. Gilbert had craved education, but lacked the strength to force the opportunity, though his reading had nourished a gentle sentiment in him, and better speech than is often found in New Englanders of his surroundings.

When 'Lisha had filled the kettle, the two men lighted their pipes, and slipping off their clumsy shoes, in unison, spread feet covered by blue yarn socks before the open front of the stove and, puffing comfortably, drifted into desultory talk.

"It's mighty queer that John Angus, leading man in this town and his folks Yankee all through after they stopped being Scotch, should stand for slavery," mused 'Lisha. "Do you suppose he's got any reason other than his usual one of taking the off side of things?"

"He has big cotton interests for one thing," said Gilbert; "otherwise, who can tell why he does this or that? Why does he hate me? Because he can't drive me off the 

 Prev. P 11/212 next