Julius Lennox

"You are puttin' your eyes out, workin' so stiddy, honey, and it's
gettin' dark."

Mabel aroused herself from her intent attitude, and looked at the
window. There was a brassy glimmer in the cloudy west; the rest of
the sky was covered by thick vapors.

"The days are still very short," she said, folding her work, and
becoming aware that her eyes ached from long and close study of the
intricate pattern.

It was Mammy Phillis who had interrupted her reverie, and she now
laid an armful of seasoned hickory wood upon the hearth, and set
herself about mending the fire, taking up the ashes which had
accumulated since morning, putting the charred sticks together, and
collecting the embers into a compact bed.

"We're goin' to have fallin' weather 'fore long," she observed,
oracularly. "The wind has changed since dinner, and when the wind
whirls about on a sudden, we upon this ridge is the fust to find it
out. I must see that them lazy chil'len, Lena and Lizy, fills your
wood-box to-night with dry wood; I'd be loth to have you ketch cold
while you are here."

"You are very good, Mammy, but why do you trouble yourself to attend
to my fire? You should have sent up Lena with that great load of
logs."

"I ain't easy without I see to you myself, at least once a day. It
'minds me of the good ole times to wait upon you. O, Lord! how
long?" shaking her tartan turban with a portentous groan, her chin
almost scraping the hearth, as she stooped to blow into the crater
of fiery coals.