or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee,
Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie" for short. He was a giant fellow,--
a "great gormin' critter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him;
but if he had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders,
he would have been thought a man of splendid presence.

He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another
section of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin,
the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead,
the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown
into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these
that gave him what the boys called a "kind of a downcasted look."
The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament;
he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart.

"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his
straw hat over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like
the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon.
Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe
some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep."

This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited
roars of laughter.

"It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his
great-aunt Lyddy," said David Milliken.

"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git
to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't
git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree!