THE COUNTRY. 181

 the Crackers prefer to cook out of doors, and
 so, near the cabin, a fire is built between three
 great stones, which serve as a tripod for their
 kettles, and a thin twist of blue smoke as
 straight as a staff rises into the still air.
 Here these human beings live, if it can
be called living. One wonders if there is any
home feeling in their vacant minds. There is
almost no. conversation between the heads of
such a household, and why should there be?
The same vague dreariness infolds them both,
the same absence of interest paralyzes them, the
same indifference shuts out emotion.
 In these cabins one is met by the anomaly of
a face which belongs neither to youth nor age,
and is at a loss to find an adjective which de-
scribes it. There is no experience stamped
upon the forehead, so the man is not old; there
is no hope in the listless eyes, therefore he is
not young. He knows neither necessity nor
desire; only silent, joyless, painless existence,
which is as perfect in its way as a tree or a
stone, and as entirely in place. It would seem
that such a face has always been, and must