bed consisted of, first, boards, then straw, then sacking; and it had
remained so long without being frayed out that it had become packed as
hard as terra firma. His blankets had not seen the light of day, nor
enjoyed the fresh cool breezes for many long years. His one window was
opaque with the smoke of many years' accumulation. Although his chickens
had a coop of their own where they roosted at night, they ran about the
floor of his "dug-out" in the daytime looking for crumbs that fell from
the poor man's table; and his cat, through years of criminal impunity,
would sit on the table at mealtime and help himself to the victuals just
as the spirit moved him. A stump had been left standing when the cabin
was built; it had been hewn at the appropriate elevation of a chair.
This was near his air-tight heater, and his favorite position was to sit
there with his feet propped against the stove and smoke by candle-light;
and sometimes he would sit in the dark to save candles. His other
furniture consisted of "Reindeer" brand condensed milk and blue-mottled
soap boxes, which he had acquired at times from F.W. Foster's general
store at Clinton.

Hard Times Hance was living on first principles; but then, if a man
wishes to save any coin in this world he must make great personal
sacrifices; and so he was perfectly happy in his temporary aboriginal
condition. There were no restrictions upon him. He was even outside the
circumference of any ministerial jurisdiction, and had never been
cautioned about the hereafter. Like an Indian, he moved just as the
impulse seized him. How this man expected to submit to the personal
restrictions and embargoes imposed by modern fashions and society was
known only to himself. The song of the forest had been his only concert;
the whisper of the creek his sole heart companion. When occasion
permitted he would wander the entire day on the high mountains, at the
end of his trail, hunting for game, and little caring whether he found