scum of
the sorghum which Job Grinnell flung from his perforated gourd upon the
ground. The idle dogs--and there were many--would find, when at last
disposed to move, a clog upon their nimble feet. They often sat
down with a wrinkling of brows and a puzzled expression of muzzle
to investigate their gelatinous paws with their tongues, not without
certain indications of pleasure, for the sorghum was very sweet; some
of them, that had acquired the taste for it from imitating the children,
openly begged.

One, a gaunt hound, hardly seemed so idle; he had a purpose in life,
if it might not be called a profession. He lay at length, his paws
stretched out before him, his head upon them; his big brown eyes were
closed only at intervals; ever and again they opened watchfully at the
movement of a small child, ten months old, perhaps, dressed in pink
calico, who sat in the shadow formed by the protruding clay and stick
chimney, and played by bouncing up and down and waving her fat hands,
which seemed a perpetual joy and delight of possession to her. Take her
altogether, she was a person of prepossessing appearance, despite her
frank display of toothless gums, and around her wide mouth the unseemly
traces of sorghum. She had the plumpest graces of dimples in every
direction, big blue eyes with long lashes, the whitest possible skin,
and an extraordinary pair of pink feet, which she rubbed together in
moments of joy as if she had mistaken them for her hands. Although she
sputtered a good deal, she had a charming, unaffected laugh, with the
giggle attachment natural to the young of her sex.

Suddenly there sounded an echo of it, as it were--a shrill, nervous
little whinny; the boys whirled round to see whence it came. The
persistent rasping noise of the sorghum mill and the bubbling of the
caldron had prevented them from hearing an approach. There, quite close
at hand, peering through the rails of the fence, was a little girl of
seven or eight years of age.

"I wanter kem in an' see you-uns's baby!" she exclaimed, in a high,
shrill voice. "I want to pat it on the head."

She was a forlorn little specimen, very thin and sharp-featured. Her
homespun dress was short enough to show how fragile were the long
lean legs that supported her. The curtain of her sun-bonnet, which was
evidently made for a much larger person, hung down nearly to the hem of
her skirt; as she turned and glanced anxiously down the road, evidently
suspecting a p