'LIGHT AND COME IN 183 
The road winds along, now hidden among trees, 
now emerging to ascend some open height where 
mountains come to view, near, green, and dark- 
shadowed, or distant, azure, and dreamlike ; again it 
makes its way around the end of a damp ravine 
where a stream jumps down in bright cascades, and 
the banks are smothered under ferns, leucothoe, 
and laurel. Through the vistas that open, pleasant 
pictures come and go — a farmhouse in a hollow, a 
log cabin surrounded by cornfields ripening into 
gold, the invincible, sunny forest pressing down upon 
it on all sides. And then, turning a curve in the road, 
directly before you stands an old house shaded by 
ancient oaks, a spinning-wheel on the porch, — or, 
if you happen to be in the right valley, a hand-loom 
may be there. 
This house that you approach, wherever it may 
be, seems to be expecting you, at least you have a 
friendly sense of knowing it, although you have 
never seen it before. As you draw near in the sweet 
summer stillness a friendly dog comes wagging to 
meet you, and some one, man or woman, comes out 
and hails you, "Howdy, 'light and come in." This 
is the universal salutation. Or if you are walking, 
as you come within earshot you are greeted with a 
pleasant and expectant, "Howdy, stranger, come in 
and rest yourself." Often, the moment you come 
in sight a chair is set ready on the porch, and the 
family assemble and seat themselves in expectation 
of your arrival. They greet you with a warmth that 
makes you feel as though you had known them 
