The dirty skillets by the fire were kept in countenance by the dirtier pots, and the ashes were drifted and strewn over the hearth-stones in a most picturesque way.
"You see," said the old woman, knocking the residuum from her cob pipe, and chafing some dry leaf between her withered hands preparatory to filling it again, "you see, Mr.Hartsook, my ole man's purty well along in the world.

He's got a right smart lot of this world's plunder[11], one way and another." And while she stuffed the tobacco into her pipe Ralph wondered why she should mention it to him.

"You see, we moved in here nigh upon twenty-five years ago.

'Twas when my Jack, him as died afore Bud was born, was a baby.

Bud'll be twenty-one the fif' of next June." Here Mrs.Means stopped to rake a live coal out of the fire with her skinny finger, and then to carry it in her skinny palm to the bowl--or to the _hole_--of her cob pipe.