would be a mercy if she were not murdered in her bed. According to the
popular mind, a tramp is a distinct species, with latent tendencies
toward crime. It was recalled that a white woman had, in the old days,
married a comely Indian, whose first drink of fire-water, after six
months of blameless happiness, had sent him raging home, to kill her
"in her tracks." Could a tramp, pledged to the traditions of an awful
brotherhood, do less? No, even in honor, no! Amelia never knew how the
tide of public apprehension surged about her, nor how her next-door
neighbor looked anxiously out, the first thing on rising, to exclaim,
with a sigh of relief, and possibly a dramatic pang, "There! her
smoke's a-goin'."

Meantime, the tramp fell into all the usages of life indoors; and
without, he worked revolution. He took his natural place at the head of
affairs, and Amelia stood by, rejoicing. Her besetting error of doing
things at the wrong moment had disarranged great combinations as well
as small. Her impetuosity was constantly misleading her, bidding her
try, this one time, whether harvest might not follow faster on the
steps of spring. Enoch's mind was of another cast. For him, tradition
reigned, and law was ever laying out the way. Some months after their
marriage, Amelia had urged him to take away the winter banking about
the house, for no reason save that the Mardens clung to theirs; but he
only replied that he'd known of cold snaps way on into May, and he
guessed there was no particular hurry. The very next day brought a
bitter air, laden with sleet, and Amelia, shivering at the open door,
exulted in her feminine soul at finding him triumphant on his own
ground. Enoch seemed, as usual, unconscious of victory. His immobility
had no personal flavor. He merely acted from an inevitable devotion to
the laws of life; and however often they might prove him right, he
never seemed to reason that Amelia was consequently wrong. Perhaps that