"Aw, shet up, Eph!" Mrs. Doggett spoke with some acerbity. "You jest go git me some stovewood, ef you want any supper tonight!"
CHAPTER II
The Myrtle Buds in Miss Lucy's Garden
"No spring or summer's beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face."
For more than a half-hour old Milton James had limped up and down the gravelled drive that led through the grove of poplars in front of the lead-colored, one-and-a-half storied house that was his home, alternately watching the fat old bay mare and three cows that pulled at the fodder scattered in the pasture field over the fence, and the muddy road that ran across the foot of the avenue and disappeared over the hill beyond.
"Lucy Ann beats ever'theng a stayin'," he muttered, irritably pulling at his sparse white beard; "jest now in sight, and hit nigh twelve o'clock!"
The dark object at length resolved itself into an old-fashioned and much mud-bespattered buggy, drawn by the counterpart of the bay in the pasture, and driven by a woman in black.
"Lucy Ann, don't drive ag'in the gate-post!"