so this little procession of friends moved in a close body toward
the barn.

David put his hemp in the saddle-house; a separate hemp-house they
were not rich enough to own. He had chosen this particular part of
the barn because it was dryest in roof and floor. Several bales of
hemp were already piled against the logs on one side; and besides
these, the room contained the harness, the cart and the wagon gear,
the box of tar, his maul and wedges, his saddle and bridle, and
sundry implements used in the garden or on the farm. It was almost
dark in there now, and he groped his way.

The small estate of his father, comprising only some fifty or sixty
acres, supported little live stock: the sheep just mentioned, a few
horses, several head of cattle, a sow and pigs. Every soul of these
inside or outside the barn that evening had been waiting for David.
They had begun to think of him and call for him long before he had
quit work in the field. Now, although it was not much later than
usual, the heavy cloud made it appear so; and all these creatures,
like ourselves, are deceived by appearances and suffer greatly from
imagination. They now believed that it was far past the customary
time for him to appear, that they were nearing the verge of
starvation; and so they were bewailing in a dejected way his
unaccountable absence and their miserable lot--with no one to
listen.

Scarcely had the rattling of the iron latch of the saddle-house
apprised them of his arrival before every dumb brute--dumb, as
dumb men say--experienced a cheerful change of mind, and began to
pour into his ears the eager, earnest, gratifying tale of its