iberal with the rod. And yet--the face of the squaw rose before her,
wraithlike, accusing! "Ai-yi!" she said; but this time her favorite
expletive was hardly more than a sigh.

"I mind Jim when he first kem to us," she said, more to herself than to
Eudora, who sat at her feet. The impending tragedy in the family had
robbed her of all the joy in her suitors. They sat on a bench on the
opposite side of the house, divided by the very nature of their interests
yet companions in misery.

"He wuz scarce four, an' yet he had never been broke of the habit of
sucking his thumb. Ef he'd ben my child, I'd a lammed it out'n him before
he'd a seen two, but seem' he was aged for an infant havin' such
practices, I tried to shame him out'n it. But, Lord a massy, men folks is
hard to shame even at four. I hissed at him like a gyander every time I
seen him do it. Now I'd a knowed better--I'd a sewed it up in a pepper
rag."

"What's suckin' his thumb as an infant got to do with his gettin' lynched
now?" demanded Eudora, with the scepticism of the second generation.

"Wait till you-uns has children of your own," sniffed her mother, from the
assured position of maternal experience, "an' see the infant that's
allowed to suck its thumb has the makin's in him of a felon or a
unfortunit." She rocked a slow accompaniment to her dismal, prophecy.

Eudora's eyes, big with wonder, were fixed on the crouching flank of a
distant mountain. Her mother broke the silence. Not often did they speak
thus intimately. Old Sally belonged to that class of mothers who feel a
pride in their reticent dealings with their daughters, and who consider
the management of all affairs of the heart peculiarly the province of
youth and inexperience.

But to-night she was prompted by a force beyond her ken to speak to the
girl. "Eudory, in pickin' out one of them men," she jerked her thumb
towards the opposite side of the house, "git one tha's clar o' the trick
o' stampedin' round other wimming. It's bound to kem back to ye, same as
counterfeit money."

Eudora giggled. She was of an age when the fascinations of curiosity as to
the unknown male animal prompt lavish conjecture. "I 'lowed they all
stampeded."

"Yes," leered the old woman--and she grinned the whole horrid length of her
empty gums--"the most of 'em does. But you must shet your eyes to it. The
moment they know you swallow it, they's wuthless, like horses that has run
away once."

"Hark!" said Eudora. "A