trick, and a lie! They ain't no flesh and blood or kin o'
mine. It ain't my wife, nor child. My daughter's a beautiful girl--a
beautiful girl, d'ye hear? She's in New York with her mother, and I'm
going to fetch her here. I said I'd go home, and I've been home: d'ye
hear me? I've been home! It's a mean trick you're playin' on the old
man. Let me go: d'ye hear? Keep them women off me! Let me go! I'm
going--I'm going--home!"

His hands were thrown up convulsively in the air, and, half turning
round, he fell sideways on the porch, and so to the ground. They picked
him up hurriedly, but too late. He had gone home.

THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS

He lived alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to
withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable
that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My
impression is, that he lived alone from choice,--a choice he made long
before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental capacity. He was
much given to moody reticence, and, although to outward appearances a
strong man, was always complaining of ill-health. Indeed, one theory of
his isolation was, that it afforded him better opportunities for taking
medicine, of which he habitually consumed large quantities.

His folly first dawned upon Five Forks through the post-office windows.
He was, for a long time, the only man who wrote home by every mail; his
letters being always directed to the same person,--a woman. Now, it so
happened that the bulk of the Five Forks correspondence was usually the
other way. There were many letters received (the majority being in
the female hand), but very few answered. The men received them
indifferently, or as a matter of course. A few opened and read them on
the spot, with a barely repressed smile of self-conceit, or quite as
frequently glanced over them with undisguised impatience. Some of the
letters began with "My dear husband;" and some were never called for.
But the fact that the only regular correspondent of Five Forks never
received any reply became at last quite notorious. Consequently, when
an envelope was received, bearing the stamp of the "dead letter office,"
addressed to "The Fool," under the more conventional title of "Cyrus
Hawkins," there was quite a fever of excitement. I do not know how the
secret leaked out; but it was eventually known to the camp, that the
envelope contained Hawkins's own letters returned. This was