w houses in the district or in the county where lights did
not burn all that night. The gleam of the fire in Mrs. Stanley's little
house could be seen all night from the door of the Mills cabin, as the
candle by which Mrs. Mills complained while she and Vashti sewed, could
be faintly seen from Little Darby's house. The two Mills boys slept
stretched out on the one bed in the little centre-room.

While the women sewed and talked fitfully by the single tallow candle,
and old Cove dozed in a chair with his long legs stretched out toward
the fire and the two shining barrels of his sons' muskets resting
against his knees, where they had slipped from his hands when he had
finished rubbing them.

The younger woman did most of the sewing. Her fingers were suppler
than her mother's, and she scarcely spoke except to answer the latter's
querulous questions. Presently a rooster crowed somewhere in the
distance, and almost immediately another crowed in answer closer at
hand.

"Thar's the second rooster-crow, it's gittin' erlong toward the
mornin'," said the elder woman.

The young girl made no answer, but a moment later rose and, laying aside
the thing she was sewing, walked to the low door and stepped out into
the night. When she returned and picked up her sewing again, her mother
said:

"I de-clar, Vashti, you drinks mo' water than anybody I ever see."

To which she made no answer.

"Air they a-stirrin' over at Mis's Stanley's?" asked the mother.

"They ain't a-been to bed," said the girl, quietly; and then, as if a
sudden thought had struck her, she hitched her chair nearer the door
which she had left open, and sat facing it as she sewed on the brown
thing she was working on a small bow which she took from her dress.

"I de-clar, I don't see what old Mis's Stanley is actually a-gwine to
do," broke out Mrs. Mills, suddenly, and when Vashti did not feel called
on to try to enlighten her she added, "Do you?"

"Same as other folks, I s'pose," said the girl, quietly.

"Other folks has somebody--somebody to take keer on 'em. I've got your
pappy now; but she ain't got nobody but little Darby--and when he's gone
what will she do?"

For answer Vashti only hitched her chair a little nearer the door and
sewed on almost in darkness. "Not that he was much account to her, ner
to anybody else, except for goin' aroun' a-fightin' and a-fussin'."

"He was account to her," flamed up the girl, suddenly; "he was account
to her, to her