The noonday sunshine lay in a thin, silvery glister on the slopes of the mountain before them, and in the brilliant light the colossal forms of the Lion’s Head were prismatically outlined against the speckless sky.  Through the silvery veil there burned here and there on the densely wooded acclivities the crimson torch of a maple, kindled before its time, but everywhere else there was the unbroken green of the forest, subdued to one tone of gray.  The boy heard the stranger fetch his breath deeply, and then expel it in a long sigh, before he could bring himself to obey an order that seemed to leave him without the choice of disobedience.  He came back and found the stranger as he had left him.  “Come on, if you want your dinner,” he said; and the stranger rose and looked at him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Thomas Jefferson Durgin.”

“Well, Thomas Jefferson Durgin, will you show me the way to the pump and bring a towel along?”

“Want to wash?”

“I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Come along, then.”  The boy made a movement as if to lead the way indoors; the stranger arrested him.

“Here.  Take hold of this and put it out of the rush of travel somewhere.”  He lifted his burden from where he had dropped it in the road and swung it toward the boy, who ran down the steps and embraced it.  As he carried it toward a corner of the porch he felt of the various shapes and materials in it.

Then he said, “Come on!” again, and went before the guest through the dim hall running midway of the house to the door at the rear.  He left him on a narrow space of stone flagging there, and ran with a tin basin to the spring at the barn and brought it back to him full of the cold water.

“Towel,” he said, pulling at the family roller inside the little porch at the door; and he watched the stranger wash his hands and face, and then search for a fresh place on the towel.

Before the stranger had finished the father and the elder brother came out, and, after an ineffectual attempt to salute him, slanted away to the barn together.  The woman, in-doors, was more successful, when he found her in the dining-room, where the boy showed him.  The table was set for him alone, and it affected him as if the family had been hurried away from it that he might have it to himself.  Everything was very simple:  the iron forks had two prongs; the knives bone handles; the dull glass was pressed; the heavy plates and cups were white, but so was the cloth, and all were clean.  The woman brought in a good boiled dinner of corned-beef, potatoes, turnips, and carrots from the kitchen, and a teapot, and said something about having kept them hot on the stove for him; she brought him a plate of biscuit fresh from the oven; then she said to the boy, “You come out and have your dinner with me, Jeff,” and left the guest to make his meal unmolested.