As six or eight loungers sat smoking about the door of the store, there was nothing to intercept their astonished view of Old Daddy when he suddenly appeared out of the gloomy forest, blinking in the sun and bent half double with fatigue.
Even the rudest and coarsest of these mountaineers accord a praiseworthy deference to the aged among them. Old Daddy was held in reverential estimation at home, and was well accustomed to the respect shown him now, when, for the first time in many years, he had chosen to jog abroad. They helped him to dismount, and carried him bodily into the store. After he had tilted his chair back against the rude counter, he looked around with an important face upon the attentive group.
"My son," shrilly piped out Old Daddy,—"my son air the strongest man ever seen, sence Samson!"
"I hev always hearn that sayin', Old Daddy," acquiesced an elderly codger, who, by reason of "rheumatics," made no pretension to muscle.
A gigantic young blacksmith looked down at his corded hammer-arm, but said nothing.
A fly—several flies—buzzed about the sorghum barrel.
"My son," shrilly piped out Old Daddy,—"my son air the bes' shot on this hyar mounting."
"That's a true word, Old Daddy," assented the schoolmaster, who had ceased to be a Nimrod since devoting himself to teaching the young idea how to shoot.
The hunters smoked in solemn silence.
The shadow of a cloud drifted along the bare sandy stretch of the clearing.