untains, about my
affairs, and I just want to know if you can let me have a bed
to sleep on at night, and a little somet'ing to eat -- I would
be very much obliged and I would pay you whatever you please -- "

"Mother," said Winthrop, "can you let this gentleman stay here
a few days? he has business in the mountains, he says, and
wants to stop here?"

"I do not wish to be no trouble to no person," he said
blandly. "I was at a little house on de ozer side of de river,
but I was told dere was no room for me, and I come to an ozer
place and dey told me to come to dis place. I will not trouble
no person -- I only want a place to put my head while my feet
are going all over."

A moment's hesitation, and Mrs. Landholm agreed to this very
moderate request; and Mr. Herder, as he gave his name, and his
valise, were accommodated in the 'big bedroom.' This was the
best room, occupying one corner of the front of the house,
while the 'keeping-room' was at the other; a tiny entry-way,
of hardly two square yards, lying between, with a door in each
of three sides and a steep staircase in the fourth.

Winthrop presently came to ask if the stranger had had supper.

"I have not! But I will take anysing, what you please to give
me."

Mr. Herder did not belie his beginning. He made himself much
liked, both by the children and the grown people; and as he
said, he gave as little trouble as possible. He seemed a
hearty, genial nature, excessively devoted to his pursuits,
which were those of a naturalist and kept him out of doors
from morning till night; and in the house he shewed a
particular simplicity both of politeness and kind feeling; in
part springing perhaps from his German nature, and in part
from the honest truthful acquaintance he was holding with the
world of nature at large. "He acted like a great boy," old
Karen said in wondering ridicule, -- "to be bringing in leaves,
and sticks, and stones, as he was every night, and making his
room such a mess she never saw!"

He had soon a marked liking and even marked respect for his
young host. With his usual good-humour Winthrop helped him in
his quest; now and then offered to go with him on his
expeditions; tracked up the streams of brooks, shewed the
paths of the mountains, rowed up the river and down the river;
and often and often made his uncommon strength and agility
avail for something which the more burly frame of the
naturalist could not have attained. He was always rea