Standing back behind its two gloomy hemlock trees, the little shanty in which Jabez Moorhouse lived was brightened into silver gray by the morning sunshine and smoke was pouring from the chimney. A few hens scratched about the door, and a white-breasted collie sunned himself on the step and looked intelligently about. Jabez was in the yard chopping wood to feed his morning fire. Half of his shirt tail hung out of his overalls, as it nearly always did, and his head and hairy chest were bare. He paused in his chopping as the cart came rattling gaily along the road and waved his hand to the young couple, who waved back to him. After they had passed he stood watching the retreating cart till it disappeared around a bend in the road.
A strange thought suddenly took possession of Judith. She found herself wishing that it was Uncle Jabez who was sitting beside her instead of Jerry. Together she and Uncle Jabez would notice all sorts of things; and they would point them out to each other and laugh and wonder and enjoy the beauty and strangeness of the world. Jerry was different. For a moment she felt cold and dreary.
As they trotted past Uncle Ezra's long white mansion, they glimpsed Cissy's face pressed close to the little kitchen window.
Jogging along toward Clayton, they saw the smoke of breakfast fires curling up in white columns and vanishing into the blue. About the houses that they passed dogs were barking, roosters crowing, and hens cackling. Men were leading horses to water, women milking, and children picking up chips around the chopping block.
"I'll bet Joe's most there by this time," said Jerry, as they swung out of Clayton. "He said he was a-goin' to leave at midnight so's to be there fer the fust tradin'. Funny the way he does. He hain't never got the money to buy nuthin, an' he hain't got much to trade with neither. An' yet he don't hardly miss a Court Day in a year; an' he's baound to be there fer the fust dog shootin'. An' Gawd, haow he does drink! He says it helps him to fergit his troubles."
"It looks like Bessie Maud don't git much chanct to fergit her troubles."
"Well, she makes 'em fer herse'f."
It was about nine o'clock when they pulled up in the main street of Georgetown and gave Nip a drink from the fountain. They had traveled a little over twenty miles.
"We'll tie up in there," said Jerry, nodding sidewise in the direction of a grassy back street. "It's a nice, quiet place to eat our lunch, an' there's grass fer Nip."