the only language he can
understand! he wanted God and he couldn't any more reach Him! he had to
climb up on another man's shoulders), well, I told him it was all right.
He was forgiven. Then he scared me blue by saying he was going round
preaching the gospel--his farm is sold, you know, stock gone, everything
wiped out--and I told him he'd proved too dangerous to be let loose on
the world again. But he had me there. He asked if he was forgiven, why
wasn't he whiter than snow? And he hung to me like my shadow, and asked
if he couldn't keep on living in the hut, till he felt strong enough to
preach. I told him he could, and blest if I didn't see him and me there
together, world without end, like Old Crow and Billy Jones, for nothing
was ever going to persuade him to let go of me again. You'd better
laugh, Dick. Nan and I had to. We almost cried. It is funny. I bet Old
Crow laughed. But Tenney saved me. He took it into his own hands. And
what do you think did it? We went down to the house one morning for
breakfast, and Charlotte came out to meet us, tying on a clean apron. It
was blue with white spots (I forgot you don't see any significance in
that, but Tenney did) and he stopped short and said: 'God A'mighty! I
was in hopes I never should set eyes on a woman's apron again.'

"I went up to have a bath (my staying at the hut was a kind of emergency
business, you see) and he disappeared, and Charlotte and Jerry didn't
get on to it that he was really gone, and later on he was seen wading
into the water over at Mountain Brook, there by the stepping stones. The
Donnyhills saw him, and at first they thought he knew what he was about,
but kept on watching him. He stooped and dipped himself, and they had an
idea it was some kind of a self-conducted baptism. I believe it was. Nan
often has to remind me that 'he's a very religious man.' But they
watched, and presently he went under, and they knew then he was making
way with himself, and the Donnyhill boy, that calm young giant, fished
him out, Tenney fighting him furiously. And it began to look to me as if
he ought to be under a mild supervision (it wasn't for nothing you and
your mother let fly at me with your psychiatry! I escaped myself, but I
learned the formula). And now Tenney, agreeing to it like a lamb, is at
that little sanitarium Miss Anne Hamilton started 'up state,' and very
well contented. Nan goes to see him, and so do I. He is as mild--you
can't think! Reads his Bibl