9247

BOUT a week after the events recorded in the preceding chapter, old man Bishop, just at dusk one evening, rode up to Pole Baker's humble domicile.

Pole was in the front yard making a fire of sticks, twigs, and chips.

"What's that fer?" the old man questioned, as he dismounted and hitched his horse to the worm fence.

"To drive off mosquitoes," said Pole, wiping his eyes, which were red from the effects of the smoke. "I 'll never pass another night like the last un ef I kin he'p it. I 'lowed my hide was thick, but they bored fer oil all over me from dark till sun-up. I never 've tried smoke, but Hank Watts says it's ahead o' pennyr'yal."

"Shucks!" grunted the planter, "you ain't workin' it right. A few rags burnin' in a pan nigh yore bed may drive 'em out, but a smoke out heer in the yard 'll jest drive 'em in."

"What?" said Pole, in high disgust. "Do you expect me to sleep sech hot weather as this is with a fire nigh my bed? The durn things may eat me raw, but I 'll be blamed ef I barbecue myse'f to please 'em."

Mrs. Baker appeared in the cabin-door, holding two of the youngest children by their hands. "He won't take my advice, Mr. Bishop," she said. "I jest rub a little lamp-oil on my face an' hands an' they don't tetch me." Pole grunted and looked with laughing eyes at the old man.

"She axed me t'other night why I'd quit kissin' 'er," he said. "An' I told 'er I didn't keer any more fer kerosene than the mosquitoes did."

Mrs. Baker laughed pleasantly, as she brought out a chair for Bishop and invited him to sit down. He complied, twirling his riding-switch in his hand. From his position, almost on a level with the floor, he could see the interior of one of the rooms. It was almost bare of furniture. Two opposite corners were occupied by crude bedsteads; in the centre of the room was a cradle made from a soap-box on rockers sawn from rough poplar boards. It had the appearance of having been in use through several generations. Near it stood a spinning-wheel and a three-legged stool. The sharp steel spindle gleamed in the firelight from the big log and mud chimney.

"What's the news from town, Mr. Bishop?" Pole asked, awkwardly, for it struck him that Bishop had called to talk with him about some business and was reluctant to introduce it.

"Nothin' that interests any of us, I reckon, Pole," said the old man, "except I made that investment in Shoal Cotton Factory stock."

"That's good," said Pole, in the tone of anybody but a man who had never invested a dollar in anything. "It's all hunkey, an' my opinion is that it 'll never be wuth less."

"I did heer, too," added Bishop, "that it was reported that Craig had set up a little grocery store out in Texas, nigh the Indian Territory. Some thinks that Winship 'll turn up thar an' jine 'im, but a body never knows what to believe these days."

"That shore is a fact," opined Pole. "Sally, that corn-bread's a-burnin'; ef you'd use less lamp-oil you'd smell better."

Mrs. Baker darted to the fireplace, raked the live coals from beneath the cast-iron oven, and jerked off the lid in a cloud of steam and smoke. She turned over the pone with the aid of a case-knife, and then came back to the door.

"Fer the last month I've had my eye on the Bascome farm," Bishop was saying. "Thar's a hundred acres even, some good bottom land and upland, an' in the neighborhood o' thirty acres o' good wood. Then thar's a five-room house, well made an' tight, an' a barn, cow-house, an' stable."

"Lord! I know the place like a book," said Pole; "an' it's a dandy investment, Mr. Bishop. They say he offered it fer fifteen hundred. It's wuth two thousand. You won't drap any money by buyin' that property, Mr. Bishop. I'd hate to contract to build jest the house an' well an' out-houses fer a thousand."

"I bought it," Bishop told him. "He let me have it fer a good deal less 'n fifteen hundred, cash down."

"Well, you made a dandy trade, Mr. Bishop. Ah, that's what ready money will do. When you got the cash things seem to come at bottom figures."

Old Bishop drew a folded paper from his pocket and slapped it on his knee. "Yes, I closed the deal this evenin', an' I was jest a-thinkin' that as you hain't rented fer next yeer—I mean—" Bishop was ordinarily direct of speech, but somehow his words became tangled, and he delivered himself awkwardly on this occasion. "You see, Alan thinks that you 'n Sally ort to live in a better house than jest this heer log-cabin, an'—"

The wan face of the tired woman was aglow with expectation. She sank down on the doorstep, and sat still and mute, her hands clasping each other in her lap. She had always disliked that cabin and its sordid surroundings,............