The old man called out, “Here, Abel!” and the figure of what seemed an elderly boy came lurching and paddling round the corner of the cabin, and ducked his gray head hospitably toward the stranger. “Give this horse a feed while we're taking ours.”
“All right, Squire. Jest helpin' Sally put the turkey-chicks to bed out o' the cold, or I'd 'a' been round at the first splashin' in the road.”
“And now come in,” the Squire said, reaching a hand of welcome from the edge of the porch to the stranger as he mounted the steps. “Old neighbors of ours,” he explained Abel and the unseen Sally. “We've known them, boy and girl, from the beginning, and when their old cabin fell down in the tail-end of a tornado a few years back, we got them here in a new one behind ours, to take care of them, and let them take care of us. They don't eat with us,” he added, setting open the kitchen door, and ushering the stranger into the warm glow and smell of the interior. “Mis' Braile,” he said for introduction to his wife, and explained to her, “A friend that I caught on the wing. I don't know that I did get your name?”
“Mandeville—T. J. Mandeville; I'm from Cambridge.”
“Thomas Jefferson, I suppose. Cambridge, Ohio—back here?”
“Massachusetts.”
“Well, you didn't sound like Ohio. I always like to make sure. Well, you must pull up. Mother, have you got anything fit to eat, this evening?”
“You might try and see,” Mrs. Braile responded in what seemed their habitual banter.
“Well, don't brag,” the Squire returned, and between them they welcomed the stranger to a meal that he said he had not tasted the like of in all his Western travel.
It seemed that their guest did not smoke, and the Squire alone lighted his pipe. Then he joked his wife. “Mother, will you let us stay by the fire here—it's a little chilly outdoors, and those young frogs do take the heart of you with their peeping—if we don't mind your bothering round? Mr. Mandeville wants to hear all about our Leatherwood God.”