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She rose and replaced the slate and primer Then, she took tenderly

from its corner the rifle, which the boy had confided to her keeping,

and unwrapped its greasy covering She drew the cartridges fro, polished the lock, and reloaded the

piece

"Thar now," she said, softly, "I reckon ther old rifle-gun's ready"

As she sat there alone in the shuck-bottoe shadows, and the s like a volcano pit, threw her face into relief She

made a very lovely and pathetic picture Her slender knees were drawn

close together, and fro the

inani which she valued and tended, because Sa wistfulness of utter

loneliness, and her lips drooped This sainst hope, with the vast isolation of the hills about her,

was a little e, and,

as she sat, she patted the rifle with as soft a touch as though she had

been dandling Samson's child--and her own--on her knee There was no

speck of rust in the unused

mechanism of the breechblock The hero's weapon was in readiness to his

hand, as the bow of Ulysses awaited the co of the wanderer

Then, with sudden interruption to her reflections, ca on