in a fit of despondency. Her father sat in the door looking straight
before him, as silent as the pine on which his vacant gaze was fixed.
Even when the little cooking they had was through with and his supper
was offered him, he never spoke. He ate in silence and then took his
seat again. Even Mrs. Mills's complaining about the cow straying so far
brought no word from him any more than from Vashti. He sat silent as
before, his long legs stretched out toward the fire. The glow of the
embers fell on the rough, thin face and lit it up, bringing out the
features and making them suddenly clear-cut and strong. It might have
been only the fire, but there seemed the glow of something more, and
the eyes burnt back under the shaggy brows. The two women likewise were
silent, the elder now and then casting a glance at her husband. She
offered him his pipe, but he said nothing, and silence fell as before.

Presently she could stand it no longer. "I de-clar, Vashti," she said,
"I believe your pappy takes it most harder than I does."

The girl made some answer about the boys. It was hardly intended for him
to hear, but he rose suddenly, and walking to the door, took down from
the two dogwood forks above it his old, long, single-barrelled gun,
and turning to his wife said, "Git me my coat, old woman; by Gawd, I'm
a-gwine." The two women were both on their feet in a second. Their faces
were white and their hands were clenched under the sudden stress, their
breath came fast. The older woman was the first to speak.

"What in the worl' ken you do, Cove Mills, ole an' puny as you is, an'
got the rheumatiz all the time, too?"

"I ken pint a gun," said the old man, doggedly, "an' I'm a-gwine."

"An' what in the worl' is a-goin' to become of us, an' that cow got to
runnin' away so, I'm afeared all the time she'll git in the mash?" Her
tone was querulous, but it was not positive, and when her husband said
again, "I'm a-gwine," she said no more, and all the time she was getting
together the few things which Cove would take.

As for Vashti, she seemed suddenly revivified; she moved about with a
new step, swift, supple, silent, her head up, a new light in her face,
and her eyes, as they turned now and then on her father, filled with a
new fire. She did not talk much. "I'll a-teck care o' us all," she said
once; and once again, when her mother gave something like a moan, she
supported her with a word about "the only ones as gives three from on