ner which een'
I'm a-stannin' on half the time. Nex' time they want to ride wi' me,
I'll say, 'Walk!' By jacks! I won't haul 'em."

This episode, if it may be called such, made small impression on
Gabriel's mind, but it tickled Mrs. Goodlett's mind into activity, and
the lad heard more of Silas Tomlin during the next hour than he had ever
known before. In a manner, Silas was a very important factor in the
community, as money-lenders always are, but according to Gabriel's idea,
he was always one of the poorest creatures in the world.

When he was a young man, Silas joined the tide of emigration that was
flowing westward. He went to Mississippi, where he married his first
wife. In a year's time, he returned to his old home. When asked about
his wife--for he returned alone--he curtly answered that she was well
enough off. Mrs. Absalom was among those who made the inquiry, and her
prompt comment was, "She's well off ef she's dead; I'll say that much."

But there was a persistent rumour, coming from no one knew where, that
when a child was born to Silas, the wife was seized with such a horror
of the father that the bare sight of him would cause her to scream, and
she constantly implored her people to send him away. It is curious how
rumours will travel far and wide, from State to State, creeping through
swamps, flying over deserts and waste places, and coming home at last as
the carrier-pigeon does, especially if there happens to be a grain of
truth in them.

It turned out that the lady, in regard to whom Silas Tomlin expressed
such curiosity, was a Mrs. Claiborne, of Kentucky, who, with her
daughter, had refugeed from point to point in advance of the Federal
army. Finally, when peace came, the lady concluded to make her home in
Georgia, where she had relatives, and she selected Shady Dale as her
place of abode on account of its beauty. These facts became known later.

Evidently the new-comers had resources, for they arranged to occupy the
Gaither house, taking it as it stood, with Miss Polly Gaither, furniture
and all. This arrangement must have been satisfactory to Miss Polly in
the first place, or it would never have been made; and it certainly
relieved her of the necessity of living on the charity of her
neighbours, under pretence of borrowing from them. But so strange a
bundle of contradictions is human nature, that no sooner had Miss Polly
begun to enjoy the abundance that was now showered upon her in the shape
of