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and his mother, a thin sallow woman, not quite a hillwoman, moving in settled melancholy about the gray old mansion; such were his memories.

Abner meant to walk through the Coltrane farm on his way to the railroad camp and look at the timber on the estate. So now he directed his steps toward the lower side of the garden fence which was screened with elder bushes and blackberry briars and was set at irregular intervals with candelabra of sumac burning with flames of brilliant red seed.

As he walked through the corn stalks the gauze of spiders continually tickled Abner's cheeks and eyelashes and the hairs on the back of his hands. The youth must have been walking amid a bewilderment of webs. Every step he took brushed away this enginery of destruction, gins and traps, spread by the aristocrats of the insect world with indomitable patience and endless cunning.

As Abner passed this tangled fence at the back of the house, the creaking of the old well sweep caught his attention. He looked up, saw the long wooden arm coming down, and then with that rural instinct to see and identify every person in one's vicinity, the teamster moved about, peering through the hedge until he made out a woman pulling on the sweep rope. A few paces farther on he turned into a little weed-choked gate which would open a bare foot at the bottom, but the rickety top would press back perhaps a yard. He let himself through, meaning to ask for a drink, and as he rustled the small growth, the woman at the well turned.

For perhaps thirty seconds the two stood perfectly still looking at each other; the woman with her arms extended upward to pull down the sweep. At last she whispered. framing the words with her lips with difficulty as persons do under great stress, "Abner—what you are doing here?"

The teamster nodded across the hill, "I was goin' to the railroad camp."

"To fight?"

"I—don't know—we want to finish the railroad."