stationery,
filled mostly with scraps of leaf tobacco, and an odd company of
veteran cob pipes, now on the retired list, or home on furlough;
before the table, a little old chair, wrought in some fearful and
wonderful fashion from hickory sticks from which the bark had not
been removed.

With every change of the weather, this chair, through some unknown
but powerful influence, changed its shape, thus becoming in its
own way a sort of government weather bureau. And if in all this
"land of the free and home of the brave" there be a single throne,
it must be this same curiously changeable chair. In spite of, or
perhaps because of, its strange powers, that weird piece of
furniture managed to make itself so felt that it was religiously
avoided by every native who called at the Forks. Not the wildest
"Hill-Billy" of them all dared to occupy for a moment this seat of
Uncle Sam's representative. Here Uncle Ike reigned supreme over
his four feet square of government property. And you may be very
sure that the mighty mysterious thing known as the "gov'ment" lost
none of its might, and nothing of its mystery, at the hands of its
worthy official.

Uncle Ike left the group in front of the cabin, and, hurriedly
entering the office, seated himself upon his throne. A tall, thin,
slow moving mule, brought to before a certain tree with the grace
and dignity of an ocean liner coming into her slip. Zeke Wheeler
dismounted, and, with the saddle mail pouch over his arm, stalked
solemnly across the yard and into the house, his spurs clinking on
the gravel and rattling over the floor. Following the mail
carrier, the group of mountaineers entered, and, with Uncle Ike's
entire family, took their places at a respectful distance from the
holy place of mystery and might, in the north east corner of the
room.

The postmaster, with a key attached by a small chain to one corner of
the table, unlocked the flat pouch and drew forth the contents--five
papers, three letters and one postal card.

The empty pouch was kicked contemptuously beneath the table. The
papers were tossed to one side. All eyes were fixed on the little
bundle of first class matter. In a breathless silence the official
cut the string. The silence was broken. "Ba thundas! Mary Liz
Jolly'll sure be glad t' git that there letter. Her man's been
gone nigh onto three months now, an' ain't wrote but once. That
was when he was in Mayville. I see he's down in th' nation now at
Auburn,