ke than he had ever slept in
before. Cassandra searched out a few articles with which to prepare a
meal--the usual food of the mountain poor--salt pork, and corn-meal
mixed with water and salt and baked in the ashes. David watched her as
she moved about the dark cabin, lighted only by the fitful flames of the
fireplace, to perform those gracious, homely tasks, and would have
helped her, but he could not.

At last the woman and her brood came streaming in, and Cassandra and the
doctor were glad to escape into the outer air. He tried to make the
mother understand his directions as to the care of her husband, but her
passive "Yas, suh" did not reassure him that his wishes would be carried
out, and his hopes for the man's recovery grew less as he realized the
conditions of the home. After riding a short distance, he turned to
Cassandra.

"Won't you go back and make her understand that he is to be left
absolutely alone? Scare her into making the children keep away from his
bed, and not climb into it. You made him do as I wished, with only a
word, and maybe you can do something with her. I can't."

She turned back, and David watched her at the door talking with the
woman, who came out to her and handed her a bundle of something tied in
a meal sack. He wondered what it might be, and Cassandra explained.

"These are the yarbs I sent her and the children aftah. I didn't know
how to rid the cabin of them without I sent for something, and now I
don't know what to do with these. We--we're obliged to use them some
way." She hesitated--"I reckon I didn't do right telling her that--do
you guess? I had to make out like you needed them and had sent back for
them; it--it wouldn't do to mad her--not one of her sort." Her head
drooped with shame and she added pleadingly, "Mother has used these
plants for making tea for sick folks--but--"

He rode to her side and lifted the unwieldy load to his own horse, "Be
ye wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove," he said, laughing.

"How do you mean?"

"You were wise. You did right where I would only have done harm and been
brutal. Can't you see these have already served their purpose?"

"I don't understand."

"You told her to get them because you wished to make her think she was
doing something for her husband, didn't you? And you couldn't say to her
that she would help most by taking herself out of the way, could you?
She could not understand, and so they have served their purpose as a