had
turned into a flitting little creature with eager eyes, who made it her
business to prey upon a more prosperous world. Mattie never went about
without a large extra pocket attached to her waist; into this, she could
slip a few carrots, a couple of doughnuts, or even a loaf of bread. She
laid a lenient tax upon the neighbors and the town below. Was there a
frying of doughnuts at Horn o' the Moon? No sooner had the odor risen
upon the air, than Mattie stood on the spot, dumbly insistent on her
toll. Her very clothes smelled of food; and it was said that, in
fly-time, it was a sight to see her walk abroad, because of the hordes
of insects settling here and there on her odoriferous gown. When Johnnie
Veasey appeared, Mattie's soul rose in arms. Their golden chance had
come at last.

"You got paid off?" she asked him, three minutes after his arrival, and
Johnnie owned, with the cheerfulness of those rich only in hope, that he
did get paid, and lost it all, the first night on shore. He got into the
wrong boarding-house, he said. It was the old number, but new folks.

Mattie acquiesced, with a sigh. He would make his visit and go again,
and, that time, perhaps fortune might attend him. So she went over to
old Mrs. Hardy's, to borrow a "riz loaf," and the wanderer was feasted,
according to her little best.

Johnnie stayed, and Horn o' the Moon roused itself, finding that he had
brought the antipodes with him. He was the teller of tales. He described
what he had seen, and then, by easy transitions, what others had known
and he had only heard, until the intelligence of these stunted,
wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and every man
vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, or even to
California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the tongue of the
improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit out on a log, in
the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill possessed, and, with
the whispering leaves above him tattling uncomprehended sayings brought
them by the wind, gather the old men about him, and talk them blind. As
he sat there, Mary came walking swiftly by, a basket in her hand.
Johnnie came bolt upright, and took off his cap. He looked amazingly
young and fine, and Mary blushed as she went by.

"Who's that?" asked Johnnie of the village fathers.

"That's only Mary Dunbar. Guess you ain't been here sence she moved up."

Johnnie watched her walking away, for the