ey, also convinced that the
object before which he had halted was supernatural, started back
violently upon seeing it apparently turn to a man. But seeing that it
had turned to nothing but a man, he wandered up into the deserted
fence corner, and began to nibble refreshment from a scrub oak.

For a moment the elder gazed up into the sky, half impressed with the
idea that the camp-meeting platform had given way. But the truth
forced its way to the front in his disordered understanding at last,
and with painful dignity he staggered into an upright position, and
regained his beaver. He was shocked again. Never before in all the
long years it had served him had he seen it in such shape. The truth
is, Elder Brown had never before tried to stand on his head in it. As
calmly as possible he began to straighten it out, caring but little
for the dust upon his garments. The beaver was his special crown of
dignity. To lose it was to be reduced to a level with the common
woolhat herd. He did his best, pulling, pressing, and pushing, but the
hat did not look natural when he had finished. It seemed to have been
laid off into counties, sections, and town lots. Like a well-cut
jewel, it had a face for him, view it from whatever point he chose, a
quality which so impressed him that a lump gathered in his throat, and
his eyes winked vigorously.

Elder Brown was not, however, a man for tears. He was a man of action.
The sudden vision which met his wandering gaze, the donkey calmly
chewing scrub buds, with the green juice already oozing from the
corners of his frothy mouth, acted upon him like magic. He was, after
all, only human, and when he got hands upon a piece of brush he
thrashed the poor beast until it seemed as though even its already
half-tanned hide would be eternally ruined. Thoroughly exhausted at
last, he wearily straddled his saddle, and with his chin upon his
breast resumed the early morning tenor of his way.

II

"Good-mornin', sir."

Elder Brown leaned over the little pine picket which divided the
bookkeepers' department of a Macon warehouse from the room in general,
and surveyed the well-dressed back of a gentleman who was busily
figuring at a desk within. The apartment was carpetless, and the dust
of a decade lay deep on the old books, shelves, and the familiar
advertisements of guano and fertilizers which decorated the room. An
old stove, rusty with the nicotine contributed by farmers during the
previous seaso