He flushed as he shifted and twisted on the buckboard seat.
The girl looked about her for a moment in silence, shading her eyes still with her curved hand.
"It is much alike, all this country that we have seen since we left the last farms.

Uncle William," she said, "but it doesn't seem dreary to me.

I should think--" But what she would have thought was broken into by a sudden exclamation from farther back in the wagon.

A large black face appeared at the aperture under the front wagon bow, and the owner of it spoke with a certain oracular vigour.
"Fo' Gawd, Mass' William, less jess stop right yer! I 'clare, I'se jess wore to a plum frazzle, a-travelin' an' _a-travelin'_! Ef we gwine settle, why, less _settle_, thass all I say!" The driver of the wagon sat silent for a moment, his leg still hanging over the end of the seat, his chin in the hand of the arm which rested upon his other leg, propped up on the dashboard of the wagon.

At length, quietly, and with no comment, he unbuckled the reins and threw them out and down upon the ground on either side of the wagon.
"Whoa, boys," he called to the horses, which were too weary to note that they were no longer asked to go farther on.