supper and spend the night at a cabin well
along the road they must travel on the morrow.

Brother Wilkins was in the abstracted state that always followed his
preaching and Jason was glad to respect his silence, until it had lasted
so long that he became uneasy.

"Father, didn't you say that Herd's was five miles beyond the church?"

The minister pulled up his horse. In the darkness Jason could barely see
the outlines of his body.

"Heavens, Jason! Why didn't you rouse me sooner? This isn't the main
traveled road. When did we leave it?"

"I don't know, sir. I thought you knew this part of the country so
well--"

"So I do, ordinarily. But I can't recognize by-paths on a night like
this. Wait, isn't that a light up the mountainside yonder? Come along,
my boy, we'll find out where we are."

The light glowed only faintly from the open door of a cabin. An old
woman, with a pipe in her mouth, sat crooning over a little fire in the
crude fireplace. She looked up in astonishment when the two appeared in
the doorway.

"Why, it's Brother Wilkins!" she cackled. "Lord's sake, what you doin'
clar up hyar!"

"Why, Sister Clark! I am glad to see you," exclaimed Jason's father,
shaking one of the old woman's hands, and shouting into her other, which
she cupped round her ear. "My son and I must have got off the main road
five miles back. We're on our way to Milton."

Sister Clark was visibly excited. "Ye ain't going on a step tonight. I
can fix a shake-down for ye. Thing like this don't happen to a lone old
woman twice in a lifetime. Bring in your saddle-bags--but Lord!" she
stopped aghast. "I ain't got a bit of pork in the house, nor there ain't
a chicken on the place. All I got is corn-meal and molasses."

"Plenty, Sister Clark! Plenty! Get the saddle-bags, Jason, and tie the
horses to graze."

They ate their supper by candle-light after their hostess had cooked the
mush in a kettle hanging from the crane. Brother Wilkins had a violent
choking fit during the meal and Sister Clark pounded him on the back,
apologizing as she did so for her familiarity with the minister.

Jason slept profoundly on his share of the shake-down that night, and at
dawn, after more mush, they were up and away.

Twice on this day, Sunday, Brother Wilkins held service in the mountains
and it was nine o'clock at night when they started toward the Ohio
again. It was not until they had reached the river at dawn and had
roused the ferryman that t