262 A COMPOSITE FAMILY 



one Christmas he sent me a good gun, my fish- 

 ing-rod another, and then a box o' wine that 

 sick school-marm that loved posies that I told 

 you of got most of it and so on. Then I did n't 

 hear so often, though I sent him a trifle once a 

 year. A couple o' years ago he wrote he was 

 married, been married quite a spell, but never said 

 when or to who; and now it 's forty years next 

 Spring since he went away, and Ephraim's dead." 



Time o' Year paused, went over to the well, 

 drew up a bucket, filled the tin dipper, offered it 

 to me, then took a long draught, replaced the 

 faded flower in the buttonhole of his shirt with a 

 fresh pink, and returned to the chopping -block 

 again. 



"His bein' dead ain't all. He did do well in 

 grape farmin' and minin' ventures here and there, 

 and his partner sent me on a letter, to make sure 

 I was alive; and when I answered it sayin' I was, 

 and askin' particulars, back come a check for all 

 I 'd scraped together and sent Eph, swelled out as 

 big and unknowable as a thin face that 's stung 

 by bees. He had laid it out to profit for me, me 

 who was half doubtin' all the while, and he 'd fixed 

 things so I 'd get it anyhow." 



I could see the veins in the old man's forehead 



