ln sprawled in the shade of a tree that partly overhung its roof,
reading a law book. The latter was collarless and without coat or
waistcoat. His feet were in yarn socks and heavy cloth slippers. Mr.
Berry was looking intently at nothing. He was also thinking of nothing
with a devotion worthy of the noblest cause. No breeze touched the mill
pond of his consciousness. He would have said that he "had his traps set
for an idea and was watching them." Generally he was watching his traps
with a look of dreamy contemplation. He, too, wore no coat or waistcoat.
His calico shirt was decorated with diminutive roses in pink ink. His
ready tied necktie was very red and fastened on his collar button with an
elastic loop. A nugget of free gold which, he loved to explain, had come
from the Rocky Mountains and had ten dollars' worth of the root of evil
in it, adorned his shirt-front--dangling from a pin bar on a tiny chain.

The face of Mr. Berry suddenly assumed a look of animation. A small,
yellow dog which had been lying in repose beside him rose and growled,
his hair rising, and with a little cry of alarm and astonishment fled
under the store.

"Here comes Steve Nuckles on his old mare with a lion following him,"
said Berry.

Abe closed his book and rose and looked at the approaching minister and
his big dog.

"If we ain't careful we'll git prayed for plenty," said Berry.

"If the customers don't come faster I reckon we'll need it," said Abe.

"Howdy," said the minister as he stopped at the hitching bar, dismounted
and tied his mare. "Don't be skeered o' this 'ere dog. He were tied when
I left home but he chawed his rope an' come a'ter me. I reckon if nobody
feeds him he'll patter back to-night."

"He's a whopper!" said Abe.

"He's the masteris' dog I ever did see," said the minister, a tall, lank,
brawny, dark-skinned man with gray eyes, sandy whiskers on the point of
his chin, and clothes worn and faded. "Any plug tobaccer?"

"A back load of it," said Berry, going into the store to wait on the
minister.

When they came out the latter carved off a corner of the plug with his
jack-knife, put it into his mouth and sat down on the door-step.

"Mr. Nuckles, how did you happen to become a minister?" Abe asked.

"Well, sur, I done had a dream," said the Reverend Mr. Nuckles, as he
clasped his hands over a knee and chewed vigorously. "I done dreamt that
I had swallered a double wagon and that the tongue o' the wagon were