AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY RIDGE. 11 



more than seek a sliady retreat and stay 

 there, letting the birds come to me, if they 

 would. 



Improved after this indolent fashion, one 

 of the hottest of my forenoons became also 

 one of the most enjoyable. I left the car 

 midway up the Ridge, — at the angle of the 

 Y, — and, passing my thrasher's blackberry 

 tangle and descending a wooded slope, found 

 myself unexpectedly in a pleasant place, half 

 wood, half grassy field, through which ran a 

 tiny streamlet, the first one I had seen in 

 this dry and thirsty land. Near the stream- 

 let, on the edge of the wood, quite by itself, 

 stood a cabin of most forlorn appearance, 

 with a garden patch under the window, — 

 if there was a window, as to which I do not 

 remember, and the chances seem against it, 

 — the whole closely and meanly surrounded 

 by a fence. In the door stood an aged white 

 woman, looking every whit as old and for- 

 lorn as the cabin, with a tall mastiff on one 

 side of her and a black cat on the other. 



" Your dog and cat are good friends," I 

 remarked, feeling it polite to speak even to 

 a stranger in so lonesome a spot. 



"Yes," she answered gruffly, "they're 



