a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the
odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while
the butter melts through it you wonder that people do not fire whole
fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for
winter.

[Illustration: BOBADAY'S CANOPIED THRONE.]

Zene had frequently assured Robert Day that an egg served this way
was better still. He said he used to roast eggs in the ashes when
burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with them, to make
them fit for a king. But Robert Day scorned the egg and remained true
to the potato.

While they were at supper the Virginian's wife came to see them,
carrying in her hand an offering of bird-pie. Grandma Padgett
responded with a dish of preserves. And they then talked about the
old State, trying to discover mutual interests there.

The Virginian's wife was a strong, handsome, cordial woman. Her
family came from the Pan Handle, but from the neighborhood of
Wheeling, They were not mountaineers. She had six children. They were
going to California because her husband had the mining fever. He
wanted to go years before, but she held out against it until she saw
he would do no good unless he went. So they sold their land, and
started with a colony of neighbors.

The names of all her relatives were sifted, and Grandma Padgett made
a like search among her own kindred, and they discovered that an
uncle of one, and a grandfather of the other, had been acquainted,