hinges to form a litter, and I was borne away
on this impromptu palanquin.

Ben the driver had by this time set off in
plodding pursuit of the truant mare; but,
before starting, he halloed out a stentorian request
to know "wheer they were takin' his stranger
tew, because Major Staines might like to action
him in county court for the gig."

I could hardly help laughing again, though
my bones ached cruelly, at the suggestion of
suing a man for the damage done in half killing
him, but I felt a thrill of languid pleasure
when my protector rejoined,

"Darn the major and his actions! He won't
cl'ar many dollars that way, for 'tain't fust time
that tearin' chesnut brute have made a smash
of wood and iron, let alone humans. That mare's
unpopular in the county, and no jury would give
a red cent if her neck was bruk. Anyhow, if
the major wants a dose of law, tell him the
stranger's under Joe Mallory's roof."

The other men gave a growl of surprise.

"Why, Joe," said he who was called Zach
Brown, "I reckoned we'd jest drop the chap
at Dan Hunt's, the taverner's. You oughter
hev more wrinkles by this than to lumber up
your house with a critter that wants a deal of
waitin' on, and mebbe hasn't shinplasters enough
to pay for his board."

I made some answer to this, or rather I began
to assure my hearers that I was better provided
with money than they perhaps guessed from my
scanty luggage and plain dress; but Joe
Mallory pressed his broad hand on my mouth to
silence me, and angrily told Zach that "when he
sent in a bill for food and shelter to a hurt
traveller, he hoped niggers would trample on
him."

Zach said no more, and before long I was
carried into the young farmer's house, and laid
on a bed. The men were going at once, after
taking a dram of whisky, but I insisted on
remunerating each of them with a dollar, which,
after some hesitation, they consented to receive
for "loss of time." Very odd fellows they were
—honest, I am sure; proud, in their way, as
Hoosiers almost always are; and not wilfully
unkind, but blunt of feelings themselves and
coarsely indifferent to the feelings of others.
Before they departed, I heard one of them ask
Joe, in no smothered tone, "what whim made
him have the stranger up there?" to which Joe
made answer, in a more subdued tone, that
"Dan's tavern was no place for a delicate town-
raised critter to be ill in, and that it was plain I
felt the banging more than I said."

When the men were gone, the master of the
house called aloud the respective names of
"Aunty!" "Phillis!" and "Terence!" but
no answer was returned. Muttering that he
would soon return, my new friend strode out
into the yard, whence issued the familiar sounds
produced by gobbling turkeys, lowing calves,
and grumbling pigs. The house was a long low
structure, mainly composed of timber, with
chimneys of brick; but it was very substantial
and roomy. The chamber in which I had been
placed, was one of a nest of similar rooms, opening
into a passage, at the end of which was the
great kitchen, decorated with dangling hams,
smoked venison, corn cobs, barrels of pickled
pork, huge yellow pumpkins, and sundry shelves
of pewter and New England crockery. At the
other end was a door, seldom opened, leading
into the best parlour: where stood the smart
furniture, the china, fine linen, and so forth,
never used but at wedding, funeral, or christening.
The quilt on which I lay was of a
coarse quality, but scrupulously clean; the
brown rough sheets of the bed were very clean
too; the pine planks of the floor, thanks to
soap and water, were as white as the glaring
walls on which hung a few cheap coloured
prints of Bonaparte's battles, and the Queen of
Sheba's visit to Solomon. The house was that
of a tolerably well-to-do Western farmer: rather
neater than the majority, but with no luxury
or ostentation. While I was musing on the
strange quarters in which I found myself, my
host returned, accompanied by a negro girl
and an old white woman, dressed pretty much
alike in common cotton prints of Lowell make.
There was a great difference in their behaviour,
however, for while the negress, whom I shrewdly
guessed to be the Phillis so often called in
vain, merely grinned a salutation, the old woman
bustled up to my bedside in a moment.

"You're welcome, stranger," said she, "but
we can talk 'nother time, I guess. A nasty
tumble! What a bruise that is on your temple
—I'll jest fix that — Phillis, the bottle off the
shelf in my room, third from the end — jump
and get it, and be spry, do. That gal moves as
if she'd lead in her shoes. All them darkies
do. Sprained your foot, eh, mister? Let me
turn it about—so, does that hurt you? then,
run, Joe, and git the black box. I've got
somethin' there, woundy good for sprains."

Joe good-humouredly hurried off to fetch
the rude medicine-chest, saying with a pleasant
laugh that "he knowed aunty be glad of the
job. She was a nurse, if ever any woman
was."

Certainly Miss Esther Mallory, Joe's aunt,
was a born nurse as well as a born gossip. She
could do anything and everything that was
required in a sick-room, except hold her tongue.
Talk she must, and while with real kindness
and untiring skill she applied bandages and
lotions to my bruised head and arm and my
sprained ankle; while she brewed me tea and
barley-water; while she adjusted the pillows
under my head, and superintended Phillis in
the boiling of a chicken for my supper; she
never seemed to intermit the rapid flow of her
discourse.

From this notable female, in the course of the
evening, I heard all the family history. How
the Mallorys had migrated West from their
original abode in New Jersey, where they had
been, my hostess rather boastfully said, since
William and Mary. How she, Esther Mallory,
had been induced, sorely against her will, to
accompany her two brothers, Joe's uncle and