The sun was now gone.
The tropical colors of the leaves, the vines, the yellow earth, departed with it. The gray twilight began to descend. The School-teacher walked slowly to the top of the ridge, and returned along the little meadow to Nicholas Parks' house. As he approached he saw a figure moving off down the mountain along the rail fence.
When he came to the house he stopped.
There was a paper tacked on the door. He looked at it for a moment, but he did not touch it. The four corners of the paper were doubled under and a tack at each end held it. He pulled the worn leather string, lifted the wooden latch and went in, leaving the paper fastened to the door.
The night had descended.
The house was dark. But when he entered it, on the instant, as though the opening of the door had made a draft through the fireplace, a log smoldering shot up a red flame that illumined the house.
The School-teacher went over to a table that stood by the wall.
On this table were a homemade cheese and the half of a loaf of bread. Beside them was a knife with a wooden handle and a thick china plate chipped at the rim. Before this table was a hickory chair, the seat of roughly plaited bark. The School-teacher sat down and ate his supper.
Everything in this house remained as Nicholas Parks had left it.
This chair, this table, a larger hickory chair with arms and a ragged cushion by the fireplace, a fourpost bed in the corner covered with a patchwork quilt. When Nicholas Parks died there had been, as now, a log on the fire, a cheese and a loaf of bread on the table.