THE WIDOW-MAN
On the Thursday afternoon of the week following the quare women's Fourth-of-July picnic, a hollow-eyed, disheveled-looking man drew up before Uncle Lot Pridemore's gate, fell rather than dismounted from his mule, dropped his bridle over a paling, and stumbled into the yard and up on the porch.
Aunt Ailsie appeared from the rear of the house. "Jeems Craddock!" she exclaimed; "I had plumb give you out! But what ails you, Jeems? Here, set down, quick!"
She pushed a chair under him, and he slumped down in it on his backbone, long legs stretching across the porch, arms hanging lifelessly at his sides, chin dropped forward on his bosom.
Aunt Ailsie ran for a gourd of water. Jeems gulped it feebly.
"You look sick to death," she said, anxiously. "Maybe you better have something stronger."
She returned this time with a cup half full of a liquid that looked like water, but was much more eagerly drunk by Jeems.
"Eh law,—that's what I need; good corn-liquor, to holp me up a little."
"Hit's good, too," replied Aunt Ailsie; "hit's some Fulty fotched me t'other day; he allus keeps me in hit."
She waited for the corn-liquor to get in its work—until Jeems's chin was lifted from his breast, his hollow cheeks were flushed, his eyes had lost their dull stare.