"Do you like to travel that road?" asked the Captain, with his pleasing lisp and blush returned again.
"It makes me sad," replied Hulda; "but I do not mutter when I go past the spot, like grandma."
"What spot?" asked Levin.
"Where father killed the traveller," Hulda said. "He died shamefully for it. You could almost see the place but for yonder woods, where the road to Laurel climbs the sandy hill."
"What's this?" said Van Dorn, seeing a little crowd around one of the single-story cabins, and turning his team into the parallel street.
A very tall, grand-looking man towered above the rest, and seemed unable to stand upright in the low cottage, with his proportions, so that he took his place on the grassy sand without and gave his directions to some one within:
"Levy on the spinning-wheel! Simplify the equation! Stand by your fi. fa.! Don't be chicken-hearted, constable—she's had the equivalent; now she sees the quotient, too."
Van Dorn looked on and saw a spinning-wheel come out of the door, and a little wool in a bag after it. Jacob Cannon put his foot on the wheel and poked his head in the door.
"I see an axe and a coffee-mill there, constable: levy onto 'em with your distringas. Experientia docet stultos! Pass out that pair of shoes!"
A voice of a woman crying was heard, and Van Dorn and Levin both leaped out to look.