The nearer aspect of the log-house was squalid.  An early apple-tree at the side had shed part of its fruit, which was left to rot in the grass and collect flies, and close to the road, under a juniper bush, the rind of melons and potato peelings had been thrown.  There was no fence; the grass was uncut.  Upon the door-step sat a tall woman, unkempt-looking, almost ragged.  She had short gray hair that curled about her temples; her face was handsome, clever-looking too, but, above all, eager.  This eagerness amounted to hunger.  She was looking toward the sky, nodding and smiling to herself.

Susannah stopped upon the road a few feet from the juniper bush.  It occurred to her that this was Joseph Smith’s mother, who had the reputation of being a speywife.  The sky-gazer did not look at her.

“Are you Lucy Smith?”

The woman clapped her hands suddenly together and laughed aloud.  Then she rose, but, only glancing a moment at the visitor, she turned her smiling face again toward the sky.

Into Susannah’s still defiant mood darted the thought of a new adventure.  “Will you tell my fortune?”

“Who am I to tell fortunes when my son Joseph has come home?” Again came the excited laugh.  “It’s the grace of God that’s fallen on this house, and Lucy Smith, like Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, is the mother of a prophet.”

“He isn’t a prophet,” said Susannah, taking a step backward.

“Seven years ago was his first vision, and all the people trampling upon him since to make him gainsay it, but he stood steadfast.  I dreamed it—­when he was a little child I dreamed it, and it has come true.”  Then, seeming to return into herself, her gaze wandered again to the sky, and she murmured, “The mother of a prophet, the mother of a prophet!”

On the other side of the road a few acres of ground were lying under disorderly cultivation.  In one patch the stalks of sweet maize had been fastened together in high stooks, disclosing the pumpkin vines, which beneath them had plentifully borne their huge fruit, green as yet.  At the back of this cultivated portion an old man, the elder Joseph Smith, was digging potatoes; his torn shirt fluttered like the dress of a scarecrow.  Behind him and all around was the green wood, close-growing bushes hedging in the short trees of a second growth which covered a long low hill.  Above the hill ominous clouds like smoking censers were being rolled up from the east; the waving beards of the corn stooks rustled and streamed in wind which was growing colder.  Susannah’s dress and bonnet were roughly blown, and the clothes on the line flapped again around the tall figure of the witch in the doorway.

Susannah contradicted again with the scornful superiority of youth.  “I don’t believe that your son is a prophet.”

Lucy Smith, having the sensitive receptive power of an hysteric, was sobered now by the determination of Susannah’s aspect.  She looked almost repentant for a moment, and then said humbly, “If you’ll come in and see Emmar—­Joseph and Emmar have come home—­Emmar will tell you the same.”