There is also a ragged hedge of privet, which seems to lack thrift.
Mrs. Pruett will turn first to the right and then to the left. Seeing no one but the children, she will call out, in a penetrating, but not unpleasant, voice:—
"Where on the face of the yeth is Sary's Tom?" Forth from the house will come the boy you met on the road. "Can't you move?" Mrs. Pruett will say. "Yander 's the stranger a-wonderin' an' a-reck'nin' what kind of a place he 's come to, an' here 's ever' body a-standin' aroun' an' a-star-gazin' an'a-suckin' the'r thumbs. Will you stir 'roun', Tom, er shill I go out an' take the stranger's hoss? Ax 'im to come right in—an', here! you, Mirandy! fetch out that big rockin'-cheer!"
It is safe to say that you will enjoy everything that is set before you; you will not complain even if the meat is fried, for the atmosphere of the mountain fits the appetite to the fare. If Mrs. Pruett likes your looks you will catch her in an attitude of listening for something. Finally, you will hear a shuffling sound in one of the rooms, as if a man were moving about, and then, if it is Mrs. Pruett's "old man"—and she well
