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he had washed his face in a tin pan and had dried it on a sour towel he undertook the hill guest's obligation to help feed and water the stock. Squire Meredith fed his hogs by whooping them up and throwing corn to them in the middle of the public road between his house and his barn. Just here the road was fairly covered by tramped-under cobs, and this morning he began throwing out more corn on this feeding place. Hogs came running from up and down the road and through by-lanes.

As Abner helped throw out the corn he saw coming down the road a team driven by a man walking behind it. Above the jingle of the harness Abner could hear the fellow whistling a country breakdown at a merry lilt, and occasionally he broke into his own whistling to sing a snatch of the chorus,

"Hum tiddy um tum . . . turkey in the straw, Tum tiddy um tum . . . turkey in the stra-a-aw . . . ."

When he came closer Abner could see that the troubadour presented a sorry sight. His trousers were torn so that one leg was exposed from the knee down. His shirt was frayed, his hat gone, leaving his shock of disordered greasy black hair glistening in the morning sunshine. When he came still closer Abner saw that one of his eyes was black and there was dried blood on one ear and on his shirt collar below, where the blood had dripped.

Both Squire Meredith and Abner paused in their work to regard this remarkable sight.

The Squire drew a breath and called out in the formula of the hills, "Hey-oh, stranger, air ye travellin' or goin' somewher'?"

"Goin' somewher', by God . . . um tiddy um tum, turkey in the straw. . . . How fur is it to Arntown?"

"You're right in it now," said the Squire.

The stranger glanced about the lonely landscape to verify the Squire's words.

"Lemme see," he said. "What do you call yore name?"

"I don't call it," said the Squire drily, for he had formed a