pin' down the bank, and then there was the Good Old Man in the water, hollerin' for help, and his hat off, floatin' downstream, and his hair all over his shoulders. And before I knowed what to think, he sunk, and when he come up, I was there in the water puttin' out for him."

"Yes, Joey-"

"I can't remember how I got there; must 'a' jumped in without thinkin'; he 'd been so good to me all along, and used to come to me in the night-time when he s'posed I was asleep, and kiss me and cry. But I'd 'a' done it for anybody, anyway, Mother."

"Yes. Go-"

"Some of 'em was takin' their shoes and coats off to jump in, and some jest standin' still, and hollerin' to me not to let him ketch holt o' me, or he 'd pull me under. But I knowed he could n't do that, becuz I could ketch him by one arm and hold him off,-me 'n' Benny 's practised it in the crick, and I swum up to him; and he went down ag'in, and when he come up ag'in his face was all soakin' wet, like he'd been cryin' under the water, and he says, kind o' bubblin'-like this," the boy made the sound. "He says, 'Oh, my son, God help-bub-ub-bless you!' and then he went down, and I swum round and round, expectin' he'd come up somewheres; but he did n't come up no more. It was awful, Mother, becuz that did n't seem to be the end of it; and it was. Just did n't come up no more. They jawed some before they got over the mountains," the boy said reminiscently. "They had n't brung much money; even Mr. Hingston had n't, becuz they expected the Good Old Man to work miracles, and make silver and gold money out of red cents, like he said he would. All the nights we slep' out o' doors, and sometimes we had to ast for victuals; but the Good Old Man he always found places to sleep, nice caves in the banks and holler trees, and wherever he ast for victuals they give plenty. And Mr. Enraghty he said it was a miracle if he always knowed the best places to sleep and the kindest women to ast for victuals. Do you believe it was, Mother?"

Nancy said, after an effort for her voice:

"He might have been there before, Joey dear."

"Well, that 's so; but none of 'em thunk o' that. And what Mr. Enraghty said. stopped the jawin' at the time. It all begun ag'in worse than ever when we got almost to Philadelphy; and he said some of 'em must take the south fork of the road with Saint Paul and keep on till they saw a big light over Philadelphy, where the New Jerusalem was swellin' up, and the rest would meet 'em there with him and Saint Peter. They said, 'Why could n't we all go together?' And it was pretty soon after that that he slipped into the river. Stumbled on a round stone, I

reckon."

The woman sat slowly smoothing the handle of the coffee-pot up and down, and staring at the boy; but she did not speak.

"Benny jumped in by that time, but it was n't any use. Oh, I seen the ocean, Mother! Mr. Hingston took me 'n' Benny down on a boat; and I seen a stuffed elephant in a show, or a museum, they called it. Benny said it was just like the real one in the circus at Wheeling. Mother, do you believe he throwed hisself in?" "Who, Joey?" she faintly asked.

"Why, the Good Old Man. That's what some of 'em said-them that was disappointed about the New Jerusalem. But some said he did fetch it down, and they seen it, with the black horses and silver gates and velvet streets, and everything just the way he promised. And the others said he 'd fooled 'em, or else they was just lyin'. And they said he 'd got to the end of his string, and that was why he throwed himself in, and when he got in, he was scared of drowndin', and that was why he hollered for help. But I believe he just slipped in. Don't you, Mother?" "Yes, Joey."

"Mother, I don't believe the Good Old Man had a grea' deal of courage. All the way Over-the-Mountains he 'd seem to scare at any little noise, even in broad daylight. Oncet, when we was goin' along through the woods, a pig jumped

out of some hazelnut bushes, and scared him so that he yelled and fell down in a fit, and they was a good while fetchin' him to. Do you think he was God, Mother?"

"No, Joey."

"Well, that 's what I think, too. If he was God, he would n't been afeared, would he? And in the night sometimes he'd come and git me to come and lay by him where he could put his arm round my neck, and feel me, like as if he wanted comp'ny. Well, now, that was n't much like God, was it? And when he thought I was asleep, I could hear him prayin', ‘O merciful Saviour!' and things like that; and if he was God, who could he pray to? It was n't sense, was it? Well, I just believe he fell in, and he was afeared he was drowndin', and that's why he hollered out. Don't you, Mother?"

"Yes, I do, Joey."

"And you think I done right, don't you, to try to help him, even if it was some resk?"

"Oh, yes."

"I knowed it was some resk, but I did n't believe it was much, and I kind of thought you'd want me to."

"Oh, yes, yes," his mother said. "You did right, Joey. And you 're a good boy, and Joey dear," and she rose from the bench where she was sitting with him, -"I believe I'll go and lay down on the bed a minute. Bein' up so-"

"Why, yes, Mother. You lay down, and I'll clear up the breakfast, or supper, if it's it. It'll be like old times," he said in the pride of his long absence from home. His mother lay down on the bed, with her face to the wall, and he went very quietly about his work so as not to wake the baby. But after a moment he went to his mother and whispered hoarsely: "You don't suppose I could go and see Benny a minute, after I've got done? It 's 'most broad day, and I know he 'll be up, too."

"Yes, go," she said, without turning. her face to him.

He kept tiptoeing about, and when he had finished, he stood waiting to be sure whether she was sleeping before he opened

the door. Now she turned her face and spoke:

"Joey?"

"Yes, Mother?" he whispered back, and ran to her softly in his bare feet.

"Did you get to like him any better?" He seemed not to take her question as anything strange or to be in doubt of whom she meant.

"Why, there in the water, at the very last, when he kep' goin' down, I liked him. Yes, I must have. But all along I felt more like sorry for him. He seemed so miser'ble all the time, and so-wellscared."

"Yes." She had got the boy's hand, and without turning her body with her face, she held his hand in hers closely under her arm. "Joey, I told you he was a wicked man. I can't tell you any different now, but I'm glad you was sorry for him. I am sorry, too. Joey-he was your father." She pressed his hand harder.

"Goodness!" he said, but he did not suffer himself to say more.

"He went away and left me when you was a little baby, and he never come back till he come back here. I never had any word from him. For all I could tell, he was dead. I never wanted him to be dead," she defended herself to herself in something above the intelligence of the boy. "I married Laban, who 's been more of a father to you than what he was."

"Oh, yes, Mother!"

"When your real father came here, I made your true father go away." Now she turned and faced her son, keeping his hand tighter in hers. "Joey, I want to have you go and tell him to come back." "Right away, Mother?"

"Why, yes?" she said with question in her answer.

"I thought maybe you 'd let me see Benny first," he suggested a little wistfully.

She almost laughed.

"You dear boy! Go and see Benny on your way. Take him with you, if his father will let him go. You 're both such great travelers. Your father 's at the Wilkinses' yit, I reckon; they hain't finished

with their cider, I don't believe. Go now."

The boy had been poising as if on winged feet, and now he flew. He came back to say at the door:

break

"I don't believe I'll want any fast, Mother, we had such a late supper." It was a thoughtful suggestion, and she said, "No"; but before her answer came, he had flown again.

The baby woke, and she cooed to it, and she went about the one room of the little cabin, trying to put it more in order than before. Some pieces of the moss in the chinking of the round logs near the chimney seemed loose, and she packed them. tighter. As she worked, she sang. She sang a hymn, but it was a hymn of thanksgiving.

The doorway darkened, and she turned to see the figure of her brother black in the light.

"I see, you 've heard the news," he said grimly. “I was afraid I might find you making a show of mourning. I don't pretend to any. I have n't had such a load off me since that rascal first come back." She answered resentfully:

He

"What makes you so glad, David? did n't come back to make you drive your husband away!"

"I was always afraid he might make me kill him. He tried hard enough, and sometimes I thought he might. But blessed be the Lord, he 's dead! They 're holding a funeral for him in the Temple. The news is all through the Creek. I suppose you know how Jane has fixed it up with James Redfield. I feel to be sorry for Hughey Blake; but he never could have mastered her. She's got an awful will. Jane has. But James has got an awful will, too, as strong as Jane-"

Nancy cut him short:

But I don't know as I blame you," he relented.

"I would n't care if you did, David," she answered.

XXII

LATE in the long twilight of the early spring day a stranger who was traveling in the old fashion on horseback, with his legs swathed in green baize against the mud of the streaming roads, and with his spattered saddle-bags hung over the pommel before him, was riding into Leatherwood. He paused in a puddle of the lane that left the turnpike not far off, and curved between the new-plowed fields in front of a double log cabin, which had the air of being one of the best habitations of its time, though its time was long past: the logs it was built of were squared; the chimneys at each end were of stone masonry instead of notched sticks laid in clay. Against the wall of the porch between the two rooms of the cabin an old man sat tilted back in his chair, smoking a pipe, which he took from his mouth at sight of the stranger's arrest.

"Can you tell me, please, which is my way to the tavern, or some place where I can find a night's lodging?"

The old man dropped his chair forward, and got somewhat painfully out of it to toddle to the edge of his porch.

"Why, there is n't a tavern, rightly speaking, in Leatherwood now, though for the backwoods we had a very passable one once. I wish," he said after a moment, "that we could offer you a lodging here; but if you'll light and throw your horse's rein over the peg in this post, I would be pleased to have you stay to supper with us. My wife is just getting it."

"Why, thank you, thank you," the stranger said. "I must n't think of trou

"No," he assented. "Where 's Joey?" he asked, leaning inward, with his hands resting on either jamb of the door.

"Gone for Laban."

"Well," David said, with something like grudge, "you hain't lost much time.

to eat at your tavern. I've often been over night in worse places, no doubt. I've been traveling through your State, and I've turned a little out of my way to stop at Leatherwood, because I 've been interested in a peculiar incident of your local history."

The two men perceived from something in each other's parlance, though one spoke with the neat accent of the countries beyond the Alleghanies and the other with the soft slurring Ohio River utterance, that they were in the presence of men different by thinking, if not by learning, from most men in the belated region of a new country.

"Oh, yes," the old man said with instant intelligence, "the Leatherwood God."

"Yes," the other eagerly assented. "I was told at your county-seat that I could learn all about it if I asked for Squire Braile, here."

"I am Matthew Braile," the old man said with dignity, and the stranger returned with a certain apology in his laugh:

"I must confess that I suspected as much, and I 'm ashamed not to have frankly asked at once."

"Better light." The squire condoned whatever offense there might have been in the uncandor. "I don't often get the chance to talk of our famous imposture, and I can't let one slip through my fingers. You must come in to supper, and if you smoke, I can give you a pipe of our yellow tobacco afterward, and we can talk—”

"But I should tire you with my questions. In the morning-"

"We old men sometimes have a trick of not living till morning. You'd better take me while you can get me."

"Well, if you put it in that way," the stranger said, and he slipped down from his saddle.

The old man called out:

"Here, Abel!" and the figure of what seemed an elderly boy came lurching and paddling round the corner of the cabin, and ducked his gray head hospitably toward the stranger. "Give this horse a feed while we 're taking ours."

"All right, Squire. Jest helpin' Sally put the turkey-chicks to bed out o' the cold, or I 'd 'a' been round at the first splashin' in the road."

"And now come in," the squire said, reaching a hand of welcome from the edge of the porch to the stranger as he mounted

the steps. "Old neighbors of ours," he explained Abel and the unseen Sally. "We 've known them, boy and girl, from the beginning, and when their old cabin fell down in the tail-end of a tornado a few years back, we got them here in a new one behind ours, to take care of them and let them take care of us. They don't eat with he added, setting open the kitchen door, and ushering the stranger into the warm glow and smell of the interior. "Mis' Braile," he said for introduction to his wife, and explained to her, "a friend that I caught on the wing. I don't know that I did get your name?"

us,

"Manderville-T. J. Manderville; I'm from Cambridge."

"Thomas Jefferson, I suppose. Cambridge, Ohio-back here?" "Massachusetts."

"Well, you did n't sound like Ohio. I always like to make sure. Well, you must pull up. Mother, have you got anything fit to eat this evening?"

"You might try and see," Mrs. Braile responded in what seemed their habitual banter.

"Well, don't brag," the squire returned, and between them they welcomed the stranger to a meal that he said he had not tasted the like of in all his Western travel.

It seemed that their guest did not smoke, and the squire alone lighted his pipe. Then he joked his wife.

"Mother, will you let us stay by the fire here-it's a little chilly outdoors, and those young frogs do take the heart of you with their peeping-if we don't mind your bothering round? Mr. Manderville wants to hear all about our Leatherwood God.”

"He'll hear more about him than he wants to if he listens to all you tell, Matthew," Mrs. Braile retorted.

"Oh, no; oh, no," the stranger protested, and the squire laughed.

"You wanted to know," he said, well after the beginning of their talk, "whether there were many of the Little Flock left. Well, some; and to answer your other question, they 're as strong in the faith as ever. The dead died in the faith; the living that were young in it in the late eigh