upper in the kitchen. It really looked quite comfortable.
Gradually a smile established itself upon Tom's countenance.

"By thunder!" he said, "here you are, youngster, ain't you? You've come
to stay--that's what you've come for."

And, being answered by a slight stirring of the patchwork quilt, he put
his foot out with much cautiousness, touched the rocker, and, finding to
his great astonishment that he had accomplished this much safely, he drew
up a chair, and, sitting down, devoted himself with laudable enthusiasm
to engineering the small ark with a serious and domestic air.

CHAPTER V

In two days' time the whole country had heard the news. The mystery of
Blair's Hollow was revived and became a greater mystery than ever. The
woman was dead, the man had disappeared. The cabin stood deserted, save
for the few household goods which had been left just as they were on the
day of the funeral. Not an article had been moved, though the woman to
whom Tom De Willoughby, as the person most concerned, handed over the
discarded property, did not find the little trunk, and noticed that
articles had been burned in the fireplace in the front room.

"Thar wus a big pile o' ashes on the ha'th," she said to her friends,
"sorter like as if he'd been burnin' a heap a little things o' one sort
or 'nother. It kinder give me cold chills, it looked so lonesome when I
shut the door arter the truck was gone. I left the ashes a-lyin' thar. I
kinder had a curi's feelin' about touchin' on 'em. Nothing wouldn't hire
me to live thar. D'Willerby said he reckoned I could hev moved right in
ef I wanted to, but, Lawsy! I wouldn't have done it fer nothin'."

But that which roused the greatest excitement in the community was Tom De
Willoughby's course.

At first Mrs. Doty's story of Big Tom's adoption of the child was
scarcely accepted as being a possibility. The first man who heard it
received it with a grin of disbelief. This individual was naturally Mr.
Doty himself.

"Minty," he said, "don't ye let him fool ye. Don't ye know Tom D'Willerby
by this time? Ye'd orter. It's jest some o' his gas. Don't ye s'pose he
hain't got no more sense? What'd he do with it?"

"Ye can believe it or not," replied Mrs. Doty, sharply, "but he's gwine
to raise that young'n, as shore as your name's Job. Mornin's got her this
minute."

Mr. Doty indulged in a subdued chuckle.

"A nice-lookin' feller he is to raise a infant babe!" he remarked. "Lord
a ma