g into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and
wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fed it to the
cow, which stood trying to lick the back of a sleek young calf over the
low fence in another lot. "I'll milk you after breakfast," she said, as
she stroked the cow's back. "The calf will have to wait; I can't attend
to all humanity and the brute creation at the same time. You'll feel
more like suckling the frisky thing, anyway, after you've filled your
insides."

The sun was above the horizon when she had breakfast on the table in the
little kitchen. She stood in the space between the cooking-stove and the
table and attended to the wants of the half-blind woman and the all but
helpless aunt. The biscuits she had baked were light and brown as
autumnal leaves, the eggs fried with bacon in thin lean-and-fat slices
would have tempted the palate of a confirmed invalid. The aroma of the
coffee floated like a delectable substance through the still air.

"It's going to be awfully hot to-day," Mrs. Wartrace, the widowed aunt,
remarked. "I hope you are not going to hoe in the sun this morning."

"Huh!" Dixie sniffed, as she sat down at the end of the table and began
to butter a hot biscuit, "and let the crab-grass and pussley weeds
literally choke out the best stand of cotton I ever laid my eyes on. No,
siree, not me. I'd hire hands, but all the niggers have gone to town
where there are more back-doors to live at; no, there is nothing for me
to do but to look out for number one. See here, you two women don't seem
to be able to look ahead. I've paid for half of this farm in the last
three years, and in two more I'll own it. It is a good thing as it
stands, but when I'm plumb out of debt we'll take it easy and set back
in the shade once in a while. Alf Henley is a keen trader and knows what
values are, and he told me not long ago that he believed a railroad
would head for Chester some day, and, if it comes, my land would sell
for town lots. Let's let well enough alone and be thankful for the
blessings we've got. That's right, Aunt Mandy, drain it to the dregs and
I'll fill it again. I knew I'd hit it exactly right this morning by the
color of it."

Breakfast was over, and Dixie, aided by the fumbling hands of her
mother, was washing and drying the few dishes and putting them away in
the safe with perforated tin doors, which was the chief piece of
furniture in the room, when the front gate opened and closed w