pudding of a peculiar excellence. All garnished with little, round biscuits, each no more than a crisp mouthful. The Congressman smacked his lips over it with frank appreciation. “Maria,” he told the old colored woman, “you could make your fortune in Washington.” Maria cackled delightedly. She was a shriveled little old crone, bent, wrinkled, and suspected of being as bald as an egg. No one ever saw her without a kerchief bound tightly around her head. She had looked a hundred years old for twenty years, and declared she was more than that. “I mus’ be a hundred an’ twenty, at the mos’,” she used to say, when questioned. Now she cackled with delight at the Congressman’s praise of her cookery. “I don’t know ’bout Wash’n’t’n,” she declared. “But I ain’ makin’ no great pile in Hardiston, Miste’ Caretall.” He laughed, head tilted back, mouth full of biscuit. “You old fraud, you could buy and sell Chase himself, twice over. You haven’t spent a cent for a hundred years, Maria.” She giggled like a girl, and went out to the kitchen, wagging her head from side to side and mumbling to herself. Agnes looked after her, and when the door was closed said, with a toss of her head: “She’s getting awfully cranky, Dad.” Amos chuckled. “Always was, Agnes. Just the same when I was your age. But she can make mighty un-cranky biscuits.” “She gets cross as a bear if I don’t help her with the dishes.” Amos looked at his daughter with a dry smile. “Then if I was you, Agnes, I’d help her.” She started to reply, but thought better of it. A little restraint fell upon them, and this continued until Amos leaned back with a sigh of contentment and pulled a pipe from his coat pocket. It was a horny old pipe, black, odorous, rank as a skunk cabbage. Agnes hated it; but Amos stuck to it, year in, year out. When it caked so full that a pencil would not go down into its cavity, Amos always whittled out the cake, burned the pipe with alcohol, and started over again. The brier had been in regular and constant use for half a dozen years--and it was still, as Agnes used to say, “going strong.” Amos cuddled this pipe lovingly in the palm of his hand. He polished the black bowl in his palm, and then by rubbing it across his cheek and against the side of his nose. Agnes fidgeted, and Amos watched her with a twinkle in his eye until she rose suddenly and cried: “Dad--that’s horrid!” He chuckled. “What was it you said about dishes?” he asked. She went sulkily toward the kitchen. Amos watched her with a certain amount of speculation in his eyes. Amos was always speculating, speculating about people, and about things. He stared at the door that closed behind her for a long minute before the clock on the mantel struck seven and broke the charm. Then he got up stiffly, favoring his big body, and 

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