hat a good bunch o' hickories,
that'll bring the blood every cut, beats a sugar kittle out o' sight
when it comes to fillin' the anxious seat." Was it really his call? Or
was he only scared?

The twelve-year-old brain grappled hardily with the problem which has
thrown many an older wrestler. This he knew: that while he had been
listening with outward ears to the restless champing and stamping of the
horses among the pines, but with his inmost soul to the burning words of
his uncle, the preacher, a great fear had laid hold of him--a fear
mightier than desire or shame, or love or hatred, or any spring of
action known to him. It was lifting him to his feet; it was edging him
past the others on the bench and out into the aisle with the mourners
who were crowding the space in front of the pulpit platform. At the turn
he heard his mother's low-murmured, "I thank Thee, O God!" and saw the
grim, set smile on his father's face. Then he fell on his knees on the
rough-hewn floor, with the tall mountaineer called William Layne on his
right, and on his left a young girl from the choir who was sobbing
softly in her handkerchief.

* * * * *

June being the queen of the months in the valleys of Tennessee, the
revival converts of Little Zoar had the pick and choice of all the
Sundays of the year for the day of their baptizing.

The font was of great nature's own providing, as was the mighty temple
housing it,--a clear pool in the creek, with the green-walled aisles in
the June forest leading down to it, and the blue arch of the flawless
June sky for a dome resplendent.

All Paradise was there to see and hear and bear witness, as a matter of
course; and there were not wanting farm-wagon loads from the great
valley and from the Pine Knob highlands. Major Dabney was among the
onlookers, sitting his clean-limbed Hambletonian, and twisting his huge
white mustaches until they stood out like strange and fierce-looking
horns. Also, in the outer ranks of skepticism, Major Dabney's foreman
and horse-trader, Japheth Pettigrass, found a place. On the opposite
bank of the stream were the few negroes owning Major Dabney now as
"Majah Boss," as some of them,--most of them, in fact--had once owned
him as "Mawstuh Majah"; and mingling freely with them were the laborers,
white and black, from the Gordon iron-furnace.

Thomas Jefferson brought up memories from that solemn rite administered
so simply and yet so impress