box, nor did
he mention the extra bills, quarters and dollars that appeared there
from time to time. The little hoard grew slowly, very slowly, in spite
of these anonymous additions--it grew as slowly as the years sped
rapidly, it seemed to Jason's mother.

Jason must have been sixteen, the summer he went with his father on one
of the Sunday circuit trips. He never had been on one before. But it had
been decided that he was to begin his medical studies in the fall. He
was to be apprenticed to a doctor in Baltimore and his mother was
anxious for father and son to draw together if possible before the son
went into the world. Not that Jason and the minister quarreled. But
there never had been the understanding between the two that except for
the unfortunate magazine episode, always had existed between Jason and
his mother.

The trip lay in the hills of West Virginia. Brother Wilkins rode his old
horse, Charley, a handsome gray. Jason rode an old brown mare, borrowed
from a parishioner for the trip.

Mrs. Wilkins, standing in the door, watched the two ride off together
with a thrill of pride. Jason was almost as tall in the saddle as his
father. He had shot up amazingly of late. The minister was getting very
gray. He had been late in his thirties when he married. But he sat a
horse as though bred to the saddle and Old Charley was a beauty.
Brother Wilkins was very fond of horses and was a good judge of horse
flesh. Sometimes Mrs. Wilkins had thought, that if Ethan had not chosen
to be a Methodist minister he would have made a first-class country
squire.

She watched the two out of sight down the valley road, then with a
little sigh turned back to the empty home.

Jason, though always a little self-conscious when alone with his father,
was delighted with the idea of the trip. They crossed the Ohio on the
ferry and rode rapidly into the West Virginia hills. The minister made a
great effort to be entertaining and Jason was astonished at his father's
intimate knowledge of the countryside.

"I don't see how you remember all the places, father," he said at noon,
when the minister had turned to a side road to find a farmer whom he
wished to greet.

"I had this circuit years ago before you were born, my boy. I know the
people intimately."

"Don't you get tired of it?" asked Jason, suddenly.

"Tired of saving souls?" returned his father. "Do you think you'll ever
get tired of saving bodies?"

"O that's different," answ