an' he'll kerry a barrel away whenst he goes."

Yerby winced at the suggestion conveyed so definitely in this crafty
speech; he was glad when the door of the furnace closed, so that his
face might not tell too much of the shifting thoughts and fears that
possessed him.

The miller's fickle mind wavered once more. If Yerby had not come
for the boy, he himself had done no damage in disclosing Leander's
whereabouts. Once more his quickly illumined anger was kindled against
Tarbetts, who had caused him a passing but poignant self-reproach.
"Waal, then, Hilary," he demanded, "what air ye a-raisin' sech a
row fur? Lee-yander ain't noways so special precious ez I knows on.
Toler'ble lazy an' triflin', an' mightily gi'n over ter moonin' over a
readin'-book he hev got. That thar mill war a-grindin' o' nuthin' at all
more'n haffen ter-day, through me bein' a-nap-pin', and Lee-yander
plumb demented by his book so ez he furgot ter pour enny grist inter the
hopper. Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though
I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose
out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his
hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin'
ter hide his book."

"No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. Book and scholar and it might
be fiddle too, so indulgent had the prospect of success made him, would
by tomorrow be on the return route to the cross-roads. He even ventured
to differ with the overbearing miller.

"I dun'no' 'bout that; books an' edication in gin'ral air toler'ble
useful wunst in a while;" he was thinking of the dark art of dividing
and multiplying by fractions. "The Yerbys hev always hed the name o'
bein' quick at thar book."

Now the democratic sentiment in this country is bred in the bone,
and few of its denizens have so diluted it with Christian grace as to
willingly acknowledge a superior. In such a coterie as this "eating
humble-pie" is done only at the muzzle of a "shootin'-iron."

"Never hearn afore ez enny o' the Yerbys knowed B from bull-foot,"
remarked one of the unindividualized lumpish moonshiners, shadowy,
indistinguishable in the circle about the rotund figure of the still.
He yet retained acrid recollections of unavailing struggles with the
alphabet, and was secretly of the opinion that education was a painful
thing, and, like the yellow-fever or other deadly disease, not worth
having. Nevertheless, since