y, with his pipe in his mouth, stood
Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed. He had come, by marriage,
to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres. He had woodland and
pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,--and in his house, health,
peace, and children: dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and
Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood
on his broad, strong palms,--two others, Philip and Henry, had died in
the cradle.

Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards
her father. She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,--

"There's the man coming now with mother! I thought't was a crazy man!"

The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing
glance, which she knew must be painful.

"What do you think, Henry? Swan Day has come back, just in time to spend
Thanksgiving with us!"

"Swan Day? I want to know!" answered Henry, mechanically holding out
his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to
recall the youthful features.

"Well! if ever!" he continued, turning to his wife, with increased
astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan's eyes were
fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the
river of life flowing by and far beyond him.

Keeping up a despairing shaking, Henry walked the stranger into the old
square room, where the once sanded floor was now covered with a carpet,
and a piano strutted in the corner where the bed used to stand. But
still in the other corner stood the old "buffet," and the desk where
Colonel Fox kept his yellow papers. How stern, strong, and mighty Henry
looked, with his six feet height, his sinewy limbs and broad chest, and
his clear, steady eyes, full of manliness! How cheery the old parlor
looked, too, as the evening advanced, and Dorcas lighted the pine-knots
that sparkled up the chimney and set all the eyes and cheeks in the
room ablaze! That was a pleasant evening, when the three elders chatted
freely of all that had come and gone in Swan's absence,--of those who
had died, and those who were living, and of settlers even far beyond
Western New York!

"It will be like old times to have you here to-morrow at Thanksgiving,
won't it?" said Henry.

"Won't it?" echoed Dorcas.

Swan said it would, and good-night.

When he was gone, little Dorcas exclaimed,--

"What a queer little old man, mother! isn't he?"

"How, queer, Do