I came to the Burkes' gate and peered through; the enclosure
looked rough and untrimmed, and yet there were the same
fences around the old farm save to the left, where lay twenty-
five other acres. And lo! the cabin in the hollow had climbed
the hill and swollen to a half-finished six-room cottage.

The Burkes held a hundred acres, but they were still in debt.
Indeed, the gaunt father who toiled night and day would scarcely
be happy out of debt, being so used to it. Some day he must
stop, for his massive frame is showing decline. The mother wore
shoes, but the lion-like physique of other days was broken.
The children had grown up. Rob, the image of his father, was
loud and rough with laughter. Birdie, my school baby of six,
had grown to a picture of maiden beauty, tall and tawny.
"Edgar is gone," said the mother, with head half bowed,--"gone
to work in Nashville; he and his father couldn't agree."

Little Doc, the boy born since the time of my school, took
me horseback down the creek next morning toward Farmer
Dowell's. The road and the stream were battling for mastery,
and the stream had the better of it. We splashed and waded,
and the merry boy, perched behind me, chattered and laughed.
He showed me where Simon Thompson had bought a bit of
ground and a home; but his daughter Lana, a plump, brown,
slow girl, was not there. She had married a man and a farm
twenty miles away. We wound on down the stream till we
came to a gate that I did not recognize, but the boy insisted
that it was "Uncle Bird's." The farm was fat with the
growing crop. In that little valley was a strange stillness as I
rode up; for death and marriage had stolen youth and left age