were sitting. Out of the carriage bounded a
broad-shouldered gentleman, who stopped only for a moment to give
directions to the driver concerning the bringing of certain luggage to
the house, and who then strode up the pathway confidently. The elder
woman upon the porch looked upon the performance without saying a word,
but when the man had got half-way up the walk she rose from the chair,
moved swiftly for a woman of her age to where the broad steps from the
pathway led up to the porch, and met the ascending visitor with the
simple exclamation:

"Jack, my boy!"

Jack, the "my boy" of the occasion, seemed a trifle affected himself. He
looked the city man, every inch of him, and was one known under most
circumstances to be self-contained, but upon this occasion he varied a
little from his usual form. He stooped to kiss the woman who had met
him, and then, changing his mind, reached out his arms and hugged her a
little as he kissed her. It was a good meeting.

There was much to talk about, and the mother's face was radiant; but the
instinct of caring and providing for the being whom she had brought into
the world soon became paramount in her breast, and she moved, as she had
done decades ago, to provide for the physical needs of her child. This
man of the world from the city was but the barefooted six-year-old whom
she had borne and loved and fed and guarded in the years that were past.
She must care for him now. And so she told him that he must have supper,
and that he must let her go; and there was a sweet tinge of motherly
authority in her words--unconsciously to her, arbitrary and
unconsciously to him, submissive--and she left him to smoke upon the
broad porch, and dawdle in the chair he remembered so well, and talk
with the bright Louisa.

As for the supper--it would in the city have been called a dinner--it
was good. There were fine things to eat. What about biscuits, so light
and fragrant and toothsome that the butter is glad to meet them? What
about honey, brought by the bees fresh from the buckwheat-field? What
about ham and eggs, so fried that the appetite-tempting look of the
dish and the smell of it makes one a ravenous monster? What about
old-fashioned "cookies" and huckleberry pie which melts in the mouth?
What about a cup of tea--not the dyed green abomination, but luscious
black tea, with the rich old flavor of Confucian ages to it, and a
velvety smoothness to it and softness in swallowing? What about