what I heer, you let ’er death bother you most too much.  Why, folks tell me you hain’t at all like you used to be, an’ that you jest stayed at home an’ never went about with the young folks any more.  You don’t look as well as you did the last time I seed you, nuther.  I reckon it’s yore way o’ living but you jest sha’n’t do that away over heer.  You’ve got to be natural like other young folks, an’ you jest shall, ef I have anything to say in the matter.  John, yore mamma was the best friend I ever had, an’—­”

She paused.  Luke was hallooing to some one down the road, and Westerfelt heard the rumble of wheels over a distant bridge.  Mrs. Bradley went to the door and went out.

“They are comin’, the whole caboodle of ’em!” she cried, excitedly.  “I declare, I believe I enjoy a party as much as any gal that ever lived, an’ at my age, too—­it’s shameful.  I’d be talked about in some places.”  She laid her hands on the shoulders of her guest, her face beaming.  “Now, ef you want to primp up a little an’ bresh that hoss-hair off’n yore pants, go in yore room.  It’s at the end o’ the back porch.  Alf’s already tuck yore saddle-bags thar.”

Chapter V

His room was a small one.  It had a sloping ceiling, and a little six-paned window.  A small, oblong stove stood far enough back in the capacious fireplace to allow its single joint of pipe to stand upright in the chimney.  There was a high-posted bed, a wash-stand, a mirror, and a split-bottomed chair.

He sat down in the chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward.  Despite his determination to begin life anew, he was thinking of Sally Dawson’s death and burial—­the old woman who was leading the life of a recluse, and hating all her kind, him in particular.  He put his hand in his coat-pocket and drew out a thick envelope containing the dead girl’s letter, and read it as he had done almost every day since it came to him.  It was part of the punishment he was inflicting on himself.  He had been tempted a thousand times to destroy the letter, but had never done so.  He forgot that a gay party of young people were assembling in the next room; he was oblivious of the noise of moving chairs, the creaking floor, loud laughter, and the hum of voices.  Fate had set him aside from the rest of the world, he told himself; he was living two lives, one in the present, the other in the past.

Westerfelt was suddenly reminded of where he was by the sound of some one tuning a fiddle in the sitting-room.  He put the letter into his pocket, rose, and brushed his hair before the mirror.  There was a clatter of heavy boots in the entry opposite his door; four or five young men had come out to wash their hands in the pans on the long shelf; they were passing jokes, laughing loudly, and playfully striking at one another.  Two of them clinched arms and began to wrestle.  Westerfelt heard them panting and grunting as they swayed back and forth, till the struggle was ended by one of them shoving the other violently against the wall; Westerfelt opened the door.  A stout, muscular young giant was pinning a small man to the weather-boarding and making a pretence at choking him.