"Come in!" said a voice.
"Sam!" said Calvin Parks; and he stepped into the room.
"How are you, Sam?" he began. "How are you—why, where's Sim?" he added in an altered tone. "Where's your Ma?"
A little man in snuff-brown clothes, with a red flannel waistcoat, came forward.
"Calvin Parks," he said, "don't tell me this is you!"
"I won't!" said Calvin. "I'll tell you it's old John Tyseed if that'll do you any good. What I want to know is, where's the rest of you? Don't tell me there's anything happened to your Ma and Sim, Sam Sill!"
The little man cast a curious look toward a door that stood ajar not far from where he sat. He was silent a moment, and then said in a half whisper, "Ma is gone, Calvin!"
"Gone!" repeated the visitor. "What do you mean by gone?"
"Dead!" said the little man. "Departed. No more."
"Sho!" said Calvin Parks. "Is that so? Well, I'm sorry to hear it, Sam! And I'm—well, astounded is the word. Your Ma gone! Well, now! she was one, somehow or other of it, never seemed as if she could go."