"Oh!" answered Ann. "Has he come?"
"Yes. He got here yesterday. They didn't have anybody to help at election. Mentor Graham asked him if he could write. He said he could make his rabbit's foot, and so he helped. Mr. Graham says he can write well. Besides, he told them stories, and they liked that. Last night he came to our house."
"Tell me about him. What does he look like close to?"
"He's the homeliest man God ever put breath into. His legs run down into feet so long he can't find anything big enough to stick them under, and his arms are nearly as long as his legs. He has a big head, big nose, big mouth, big ears, lots of black hair, and he's hard and horny and knotty like a tree—and as green, too."
"Did he talk to you?"
"No, he didn't pay me any heed at all, but he and Ma got to be good friends before he'd been in the house an hour. She was tired half to death putting up berries and trying to get supper. She put Johnnie watching the baby and he let him roll down the steps. The new man heard him crying and went right out and got him. In five minutes the baby was laughing. This made Ma feel better and she got talking, and first thing I knew he was helping her wash dishes and telling her about what he saw in New Orleans and down the Mississippi. He talks better than he looks."
"How does he talk? Has he a big, deep voice and mellow, like the sound of the horn over the tree and river?"
"No, indeed. He sets out thin sounding, but his voice seems to work down into his chest as he talks and he sounds pretty good. After supper Pa brought in the cider. Mr. Graham came over and Dr. Allen, and they got Long Shanks talking and didn't want him to quit. Mentor Graham took a great liking to him. He lived in Kentucky once and then Indiana. He asked about the folks in these parts and when he heard Jo Kelsy owns a Shakespeare he said he was going to try to borrow it, said he's read the Bible till he knew it by heart and the Constitution and some other things but never seen a Shakespeare. When Mr. Graham told him he had fifty books his dull, gray eyes turned bright as new candles. He's terrible interested in books, but he don't have any time for girls."
"How do you know?"