wait helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.

"They say that he is a turrible, turrible man," the blacksmith averred,
ever and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which,
though bundled in its jeans sleeve, he had the illusion of the
sensation of its hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his
broad palm to eye that significant line which marked the road among the
pines on the eastern slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and
rank of growth in the rich bottom-lands.

Ethelinda's heart sank. All unprescient of the day's impending event,
she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and
she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she
listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a
great yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough, and
here a horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by a
draught; he had ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but
still stood with his muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping,
gazing with unimagined thoughts at the reflection of his big equine
eyes, the blue sky inverted, the dappling yellow leaves, more golden
even than the sunshine, and the glimmering flight of birds, with a
stellular light upon their wings.

"A turrible man?--w-w-well," stuttered the idiot, who had of late
assumed all the port of coherence; he snatched and held a part in the
colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his
infirmity, "then I'd be obleeged ter him ef--ef--ef he'd stay out'n
Tanglefoot Cove."

"So would I." The miller laughed uneasily. But for the corrugations of
time, one might not have known if it were flour or age that had so
whitened his long beard, which hung quivering down over the breast of
his jeans coat, of an indeterminate hue under its frosting from the
hopper. "He hev tuk up a turrible spite at Tanglefoot Cove."

The blacksmith nodded. "They say that he 'lowed ez traitors orter be
treated like traitors. But _I_ be a-goin' ter tell him that the
Confederacy hev got one arm off'n me more'n its entitled to, an' I'm
willin' ter call it quits at that."

"'Tain't goin' ter do him no good ter raid the Cove," an ancient farmer
averred; "an' it's agin' the rebel rule, ennyhows, ter devastate the
kentry they live off'n--it's like sawin' off the bough ye air sittin'
on." His eyes dwelt with a fearful affection on the laden fi