"Is this Cherokee Garden?" he asked of the wrinkled white woman sitting in the doorway of the solitary suburban residence.
"This ain't the hull of it, young man," she answered severely, taking her corn-cob pipe out of her mouth and looking at Ellesworth as if he had cast an aspersion upon a city. "Ye kin ride down the road a right smart bit until ye come to the kyars. The post office is on the other side o' the track." This she said with an accent of resentment.
"Do you know where a man called William Benson lives, whom I understand has a—a farm here somewhere?"
When Ellesworth had finished his question the old woman got up and, supported by her stick, tottered to his side, and peered up into his face.
"Air ye any kin ter Bill Benson? Air ye an'thin' to him?"
"No, no," stammered Ellesworth, taken aback. "I only wanted to call on him. Why?"
"Ye'll hev'ter go right smart ways to find Bill Benson," replied the old woman, grimly.
She peered up into his face again, and shook her head. Ellesworth, wondering whether his creditor had "skipped to Cuba to avoid payment," awaited information.
"Bill Benson" (she stopped to take a whiff, and then proceeded with a tone of awe caught from Methodist preachers) "hez gone to glory!"
"Where?" asked Boston, ignorant of the longitude and latitude of that strange place.