enough to start me coughin' for a week, an' those men thar jest
swallow it down for pure pleasure." Clean, kindly, hospitable,
she wandered garrulously on, remembering at intervals to press
the young man to "come inside an' try the cakes an' cider."

"No, I'll look them up out there," said Christopher, resisting
the invitation to enter. "I want to get a pair of horseshoes from
Jim; the gray mare cast hers yesterday, and Dick Boxley is laid
up with a sprained arm. Oh, no, thanks; I must be going back."
With a friendly nod he turned from the steps and went rapidly
along the path which led to the distant barn.

As Mrs. Weatherby had said, the place was like the bowl of a
pipe, and it was a moment before Christopher discovered the
little group gathered about the doorway, where a shutter hung
loosely on wooden hinges.

The ancient custom of curing tobacco with open fires, which had
persisted in Virginia since the days of the early settlers, was
still commonly in use; and it is possible that had one of
Christopher's colonial ancestors appeared at the moment in Jacob
Weatherby's log barn it would have been difficult to convince him
that between his death and his resurrection there was a lapse of
more than two hundred years. He would have found the same square,
pen-like structure, built of straight logs carefully notched at
the corners; the same tier-poles rising at intervals of three
feet to the roof; the same hewn plates to support the rafters;
the same "daubing" of the chinks with red clay; and the same
crude door cut in the south wall. From the roof the tobacco hung
in a fantastic decoration, shading from dull green to deep