the grist-mill. Then Ebenezer Timberlake died of the dropsy an' the
first thing folks knew, Abel had moved over and turned miller. All the
grain that's raised about here now goes to his mill, an' they say he'll
be throwin' out the old and puttin' in new-fangled machinery befo' the
year is up. He's the foremost man in these parts, suh, unless you war to
come to Jordan's Journey to live like yo' uncle."

"To live like my uncle," repeated the young man, with an ironic
intonation that escaped the ears of old Adam. "But what of the miller's
little sweetheart with the short hair and the divine smile? Whose
daughter is she?"

Old Adam's thin lips flattened until a single loosened tooth midway of
his lower gum wagged impishly back and forth. His face, sunburned
and frosted like the hardened rind of some winter fruit, revealed the
prominent bones of the skull under the sunken flesh. One of his gnarled
old hands, trembling and red, clutched the clay bowl of his pipe; the
other, with the callous skin of the palm showing under the bent fingers,
rested half open on the leather patch that covered the knee of his
overalls. A picture of toilworn age, of the inevitable end of all mortal
labour, he had sat for hours in the faint sunshine, smiling with his
sunken, babyish mouth at the brood of white turkeys that crowded about
the well.

"Well, she's Reuben Merryweather's granddaughter, suh," replied Solomon
in the place of the elder. "He was overseer at Jordan's Journey, you
know, durin' the old gentleman's lifetime, after the last Jordan died
and the place was bought by yo' uncle. Ah, 'twas different, suh, when
the Jordans war livin'!"