away over the winding dirt road to the home of one or other of their kin for an all-day visit. The parent Pippingers sat on the seat in front, which was padded with a couple of old patchwork quilts; and the children made themselves comfortable seats in the thick straw of the wagon body.
So they would drive out into the sunshine, up hill and down hill, across rickety wooden bridges, around gentle bends and sharp turns, past corn patches and tobacco fields and long stretches of land grown up in weeds and brush; through little groves of second growth maple and hickory, past old log houses and weathered frame shanties and big tobacco barns and occasional large, more or less pretentious dwellings surrounded by lawns, till they came to grandad's or Aunt Abigail's or Cousin Rubena's, and there halted for the day.
It was not considered necessary to warn relatives that on such and such a day they were to receive seven all-day visitors. Such an idea had never occurred to Bill or his wife or any of their connections. The Pippingers themselves received many such guests, and were quite as glad to be visited as to visit. There was no sin greater than the sin of being stingy with your time, your food, or your work. To intimate by word, deed, or look that visitors were not welcome was unthinkable in the social circle in which Bill's family and their kin moved.
When the visiting Pippingers reached their destination, whether it was grandad's or Aunt Abigail's or Cousin Rubena's, the procedure was always the same. Everybody, men, women, and children, came out to the wagon to welcome the visitors. There would follow a few moments of general kissing, handshaking, comments on the weather, and mutual inquiries concerning health. Then the men unhitched, put up the mules, and retired to the barnyard to chew, whittle, and exchange silence-punctuated views on the three main topics of common interest, the weather, the crops, and the neighbors. The children straggled after them or ran to the wagon shed to see the new litter of puppies or started a game of "Hide and Seek" in the dooryard. Aunt Annie Pippinger went with the womenfolk back into the house, where, having laid aside her sun-
