before if it's such a big thing an' a thing that the Lord intended?" He
gazed about him helplessly and with the face of one who sees omens and
cannot construe them, but who feels a nameless fear of their portent.

"At all events," reiterated the guest, "you will do well to hear what
the boy wants to say, and now I will bid you good-night."

When he had gone, the older man sat in thought for awhile, and, when
next his voice broke the silence, it was in a much softened timbre, a
voice tinged with tenderness.

"Mother," he called in an undertone, and the woman who had borne his
children and stood shoulder to shoulder with him through the years of
fight, came over and knelt at his knee. He took her hand and held it for
a while in silence, and then he said a little brokenly: "Mother, when we
first came here from the little church down there, this house looked
pretty good to us, didn't it?"

"To me, Tom," she said softly, "it has always looked good."

"Do you remember," he went on irrelevantly, "when we brought that slip
of vine from the mountain and planted it by the porch? It's over the
roof now."

The woman only pressed his hand; and after a moment he went on.

"There are a couple of graves out there in the churchyard that I'd hate
mightily to leave."

"The two we lost," she whispered.