He was seldom alone in those early hours, although the house slept profoundly behind him; a robin, the only bird whose name he was sure of, hopped heavily and vigorously about on the sparkling grass; a little brown bird of whose name he had not the slightest notion, but whose voice he knew very well by this time, poured out a continuous cascade of quick, high, eager notes from the top of the elm; a large toad squatted peaceably in the sun, the loose skin over its forehead throbbing rhythmically with the life in it; and over on the steps of the Crittendens’ kitchen, the old Indian woman, as motionless as the toad, fixed her opaque black eyes on the rising sun, while something about her, he could never decide what, throbbed rhythmically with the life in her.  Mr. Welles had never in all his life been so aware of the rising sun, had never so felt it like something in himself as on those mornings when he walked in his garden and glanced over at the old Indian.

Presently, the Crittenden house woke, so to speak, with one eye, and took on the aspect of a house in which someone is astir.  First came the fox-terrier, inevitable precursor of his little master, and then, stepping around Toucle as though she were a tree or a rock, came his little partner Paul, his freckled face shining with soap and the earliness of the hour.  Mr. Welles was apt to swallow hard again, when he felt the child’s rough, strong fingers slip into his.

“Hello, Mr. Welles,” said Paul.

“Hello, Paul,” said Mr. Welles.

“I thought sure I’d beat you to it for once, this morning,” was what Paul invariably said first.  “I can’t seem to wake up as early as you and Toucle.”

Then he would bring out his plan for that particular morning walk.

“Maybe we might have time to have me show you the back-road by Cousin Hetty’s, and get back by the men’s short-cut before breakfast, maybe?  Perhaps?”

“We could try it,” admitted Mr. Welles, cautiously.  It tickled him to answer Paul in his own prudent idiom.  Then they set off, surrounded and encompassed by the circles of mad delight which Medor wove about them, rushing at them once in a while, in a spasm of adoration, to leap up and lick Paul’s face.

Thus on one of these mornings in April, they were on the back-road to Cousin Hetty’s, the right-hand side solemn and dark with tall pines, where the ground sloped up towards the Eagle Rocks; jungle-like with blackberry brambles and young pines on the left side where it had been lumbered some years ago.  Paul pointed out proudly the thrifty growth of the new pines and explained it by showing the several large trees left standing at intervals down the slope towards the Ashley valley.  “Father always has them do that, so the seeds from the old trees will seed up the bare ground again.  Gosh!  You’d ought to hear him light into the choppers when they forget to leave the seed-pines or when they cut under six inches butt diameter.”