hearth. The odor of breakfast was savory and appetizing. As David's tall form cast a shadow across the sunlit space on the floor, the old mother's voice called to him from the corner.
"Come right in, Doctah; take a cheer and set. Your breakfast's ready, I reckon. How have you slept, suh?"
The girl at the fire rose and greeted him, but he missed the boy.
"Where's the little chap?" he asked.
"Cassandry sont him out to wash up. F'ust thing she do when she gets home is to begin on Hoyle and wash him up."
"He do get that dirty, poor little son," said the girl. "It's like I have to torment him some. Will you have breakfast now, suh? Just take your chair to the table, and I'll fetch it directly."
"Won't I, though! What air you have up here! It makes me hungry merely to breathe. Is it this way all the time?"
"Hit's this-a-way a good deal," said Sally, from under her sunbonnet,
"Oh, the' is days hit's some colder, like to make water freeze right hard, but most days hit's a heap warmer than this."
"That's so," said the invalid. "I hev seen it so warm a heap o' winters 'at the trees gits fooled into thinkin' hit's spring an' blossoms all out, an' then come along a late freez'n' spell an'