disappointed to find that weeks must still pass ere she could walk by herself. She was seated on her little porch where David had helped her, looking out on the growing things and the blossoming spring all about — a sight to make the heart glad; but she saw only that the time was passing, and it would soon be too late to make a crop that year.

She was such a neat, self-respecting old woman as she sat there. Her work-worn old hands were not idle, for she turned and mended Hoyle’s funny little trousers, home-made, with suspenders attached.

“I don’t know what-all we can do ef we can’t make a crap. We won’t have no corn nor nothin’, an’ nothin’ to feed stock, let alone we-uns. We’ll be in a fix just like all the poor white trash, me not able to do a lick.”