Jim, and already its few ruins had taken upon themselves the look of
years of abandonment and decay. The wild land seemed to have thrown off
its yoke of cultivation in a night, and nature rioted again with all its
primal forces over the freed soil. Wild oats and mustard were springing
already in the broken furrows, and lank vines were slimily spreading
over a few scattered but still unseasoned and sappy shingles. Some
battered tin cans and fragments of old clothing looked as remote as if
they had been relics of the earliest immigration.
Clarence turned inquiringly towards the Hopkins farmhouse across the
road. His arrival, however, had already been noticed, as the door of the
kitchen opened in an anticipatory fashion, and he could see the slight
figure of Phoebe Hopkins in the doorway, backed by the overlooking heads
and shoulders of her parents. The face of the young girl was pale and
drawn with anxiety, at which Clarence's simple astonishment took a shade
of concern.
"I am looking for Mr. Hooker," he said uneasily. "And I don't seem to be
able to find either him or his house."
"And you don't know what's gone of him?" said the girl quickly.
"No; I haven't seen him for two weeks."
"There, I told you so!" said the girl, turning nervously to her parents.
"I knew it. He hasn't seen him for two weeks." Then, looking almost
tearfully at Clarence's face, she said, "No more have we."
"But," said Clarence impatiently, "something must have happened. Where
is his house?"
"Taken away by them jumpers," interrupted the old farmer; "a lot of
roughs that pulled it down and carted it off in a jiffy before our very
eyes without answerin' a civil question to me or her. But he wasn't
there, nor before, nor since."
"No," added the old woman, with flashing eyes, "or he'd let 'em have
what ther' was in his six-shooters."
"No, he wouldn't, mother," said the girl impatiently, "he'd CHANGED, and
was agin all them ideas of force and riotin'. He was for peace and
law all the time. Why, the day before we missed him he was tellin' me
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