CHAPTER III




At the gate in front of his farmhouse in the mountains Tom Drake
received a letter from the rural mail-carrier, who was passing in a
one-horse buggy.

"That's all this morning, Tom," the carrier said, cheerfully. "You've
got good corn and cotton in the bottom below here."

"Purty good, I reckon, if the drouth don't kill 'em," the farmer
answered. The carrier drove on, and Tom slowly opened his letter and
turned toward the house. He was a typical Georgia mountaineer, strong,
tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged. He wore no beard, had mild brown
eyes, heavy chestnut hair upon which rested a shapeless wool hat full
of holes. His arms and legs were long, his gait slouching and
deliberate. He was in his shirt-sleeves; his patched jean trousers
were too large at the waist, and were supported by a single home-
knitted suspender. He was chewing tobacco, and as he went along he
moved his stained lips in the audible pronunciation of the words he
was reading.

His wife, Lucy, a slender woman, in a drab print dress with no sort of