yer, and not all those in
the room heard it clearly. The words were not always fitly chosen; but
as the prayer neared its close,--and it was a short prayer at the
most,--there came strength and courage into the voice as it asked for
grace for "the brother among us who has shared our sufferings and
lightened our burdens, and who has cleaved to us as a brother, but
whose heart is drawn away from us by ties of blood and kinship"; and
then the voice sank lower and lower as though in shame at its
boldness, and hushed in a tremulous Amen.

No one spoke for a moment, and as Sycamore Ridge looked up from the
floor, its eyes turned instinctively toward Martin Culpepper. He felt
the question that was in the hearts about him, and slowly, to the
wonder of all, he rose. He had a beautiful deep purring voice, and
when he opened his eyes, they seemed to look into every pair of eyes
in the throng. There were tears on his face and in his voice as he
spoke. "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following
after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest,
I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where
thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to
me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." And then he
sank to his chair and hid his face, and for a moment a hundred
wet-eyed men were still.

Though John Barclay was at the meeting, he remembered only his
mother's prayer, but in his heart there was always a picture of a
little boy trying to walk home with a little girl, and when he came up
with her she darted ahead or dropped back. At the Culpepper gate she
stood waiting fully a minute for him to catch her, and when he came up
to her, she laughed, "Huh, Mr. Smarty, you didn't, did you?" and ran
up the walk, scooted into the house, and slammed the door. But he
understood and went leaping down the hill toward home with happiness
tingling in his very finger-tips. He seemed to be flying rather than
walking, and his toes touched the dirt path so lightly that he rounded
the corner and ran plump into Miss Lucy and Philemon Ward standing at
the gate. And what he saw surprised him so that he let out a great
"haw-haw-haw" and ran, trying to escape his shame and fear at his
behaviour. But the next morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as
he came into the schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and that
thrill was lost by the thump of joy that startled his