The postmaster carried away his mail sack, the
loungers at the stoop gradually disappeared, and so presently I began to
look about me. I found my eyes resting upon a long figure at the farther
end of the gallery, sitting in the shade of the steep hill which came
down, almost sharp as a house roof, back of the tavern, and so cut off
the evening sun. It was apparently a woman, tall and thin, clad in a
loose, stayless gown, her face hid in an extraordinarily long, green
sun-bonnet. Her arms were folded, and she was motionless. But now and
then there came a puff of smoke from within the caverns of the
sun-bonnet, accompanied with the fragrant odor of natural leaf, whose
presence brooked no debate by the human nose. I looked at this stranger
again and yet again, then slowly walked up and held out my hand. No one
in all the world who could counterfeit Mandy McGovern, even so far away,
and under conditions seemingly impossible for her presence!
Mandy's pipe well-nigh fell from her lips. "Well, good God A'mighty! If
it ain't you, son!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," I smiled.
"They told me you-all lived somewheres around here."
"Aunt Mandy," I interrupted. "Tell me, what in the world are you doing
here?"
"Why, me and the folks just come down to look around.
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