. Sher'ff
kem ter his house 'bout a jedgmint debt, an' levied on his craps. An'
arter he war gone old man tuk a axe an' gashed bodaciously inter the
loom an' hacked it up. Ez ef that war goin' ter do enny good! His wife
war the mos' outed woman I ever see. They 'ain't got nare nother loom
nuther, an' hain't hearn no advices from the Lord."

The violinist paused in his playing. "They 'lowed Moses war a meek man
too," he said. "He killed a man with a brick-badge an' buried him in the
sand. Mighty meek ways"--with a satirical grimace.

The others, divining that this was urged in justification and precedent
for devious modern ways that were not meek, did not pursue this branch
of the subject.

"S'prised me some," remarked the advanced thinker, "ter hear ez them
tables o' stone war up on the bald o' the mounting thar. I hed drawed
the idee ez 'twar in some other kentry somewhar--I dunno--" He stopped
blankly. He could not formulate his geographical ignorance. "An' I never
knowed," he resumed, presently, "ez thar war enough gold in Tennessee
ter make a gold calf; they fund gold hyar, but 'twar mighty leetle."

"Mebbe 'twar a mighty leetle calf," suggested the blacksmith.

"Mebbe so," assented the other.

"Mebbe 'twar a silver one," speculated a third; "plenty o' silver they
'low thar air in the mountings."

The violinist spoke up suddenly. "Git one o' them Injuns over yander ter
Quallatown right seasonable drunk, an' he'll tell ye a power o' places
whar the old folks said thar war silver." He bowed his chin once more
upon the instrument, and again the slow drawling conversation proceeded
to soft music.

"Ef ye'll b'lieve me," said the advanced thinker, "I never war so
conflusticated in my life ez I war when he stood up in meetin' an' told
'bout'n the tables of the law bein' on the bald! I 'lowed 'twar somewhar
'mongst some sort'n people named 'Gyptians."

"Mebbe some o' them Injuns air named 'Gyptians'," suggested Spears, the
blacksmith.

"Naw, sir," spoke up the fiddler, who had been to Quallatown, and was
the ethnographic authority of the meeting. "Tennessee Injuns be named
Cher'-kee, an' Chick'saw, an' Creeks."

There was a silence. The moonlight sifted through the dark little shanty
of a shop; the fretting and foaming of a mountain stream arose from
far down the steep slope, where there was a series of cascades, a fine
water-power, utilized by a mill. The sudden raucous note of a night-hawk
jarred upon the a