Your servant has but one wife. And
now, O God, bless these people in their giving. And make me, in my
solitary circuit riding in the hills and valleys a proper mouthpiece of
Your will. For Lord Jesus' sake, Amen."

There was a short pause after the rich voice stopped, then a few weak
"Amens" came from different corners of the church and Brother Ames,
jumping to his feet, exclaimed:

"Let us close the meeting by singing

'How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus no longer I see--'"

This ended Jason's first day at High Hill. The salary was small, even
for a Methodist circuit rider, in the decade before the Civil War. It
was smaller by fifty dollars than what they had been allowed the year
before. Yet, High Hill, as Mrs. Wilkins pointed out to Jason the next
day, was much more attractive than any town they had been in for years.
There was a good school, and the Ohio river-packet stopped twice a week,
and a Mr. Inchpin in the town was reported to be the owner of a number
of books. Jason's mother was an Eastern woman and sometimes the
loneliness and hardship of her life made her find solace in what seemed
to Jason inconsequential things. Still, he was glad of the school, for
he was a first-class student and already had decided to take his
father's and mother's advice that he study medicine. And the packet,
warping in twice a week, was, after all, something to which one might
look forward and Mr. Inchpin's books would be wonderful.

Jason was sure that the Ohio valley in which he had spent the whole of
his short life was the most beautiful spot in the world. The lovely
green heights rolling back into the Kentucky sky line, were, he thought,
great enough for David, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. The fine
headlands on the Ohio side, wooded, mysterious, were, he was sure, clad
in verdure like the utmost bound of the everlasting hills of Jacob. And
High Hill with its fifteen hundred souls was "a city, builded on a hill
that could not be laid."

For Jason was brought up on the Bible. His father believed that it ought
to be, outside of his school text books, his only literature. His
mother, with her Eastern traditions, thought otherwise. A Methodist
circuit rider before the Civil War moved every year, and every year Mrs.
Wilkins combed each new community for books. It was wonderful how she
and Jason scented them out.

They had been in High Hill about a week when Jason came panting into the
house lat