In the hot days of summer, over against the dark forest the bright green
of our little patch of Indian corn rippled in the wind. And towards
night I would often sit watching the deep blue of the mountain wall and
dream of the mysteries of the land that lay beyond. And by chance, one
evening as I sat thus, my father reading in the twilight, a man stood
before us. So silently had he come up the path leading from the brook
that we had not heard him. Presently my father looked up from his book,
but did not rise. As for me, I had been staring for some time in
astonishment, for he was a better-looking man than I had ever seen. He
wore a deerskin hunting shirt dyed black, but, in place of a coonskin cap
with the tail hanging down, a hat. His long rifle rested on the ground,
and he held a roan horse by the bridle.

"Howdy, neighbor?" said he.

I recall a fear that my father would not fancy him. In such cases he
would give a stranger food, and leave him to himself. My father's whims
were past understanding. But he got up.

"Good evening," said he.

The visitor looked a little surprised, as I had seen many do, at my
father's accent.

"Neighbor," said he, "kin you keep me over night?"

"Come in," said my father.

We sat down to our supper of corn and beans and venison, of all of which
our guest ate sparingly. He, too, was a silent man, and scarcely a word