him in ary hawss market this side o' the Ohio River, I'll eat hawss for
the rest o' my bawn days. Now that's fair, ain't it?"

"It's more than fair; it's generous. But let me ask you: is this
protracted-meeting talk you're giving me, or just plain, every-day horse
lies?"

Brother Japheth halted the parade and there was aggrieved
reproachfulness in every line of his long, lantern-jawed face.

"Now lookee here; I didn't 'low to find _you_ a-sittin' in the seat of
the scornful, Tom-Jeff; I shore didn't. Ain't the good cause precious to
your soul no mo' sence you to'd loose f'om your mammy's apron-string?"

Tom's shrewd overlooking of the horse-trader spoke eloquently of the
spiritual landmarks past and left behind.

"I don't know about you, Japhe. A fair half of the time you have me
cornered; and the other half I'm wondering if you are just ordinary,
canting hypocrite, like the majority of 'the brethren.'"

"Now see here, Tom-Jeff, you know a heap better'n that! First and
fo'most, the majority ain't the majority, not by three sights and a
horn-blow. Hit don't take more'n one good, perseverin' hypocrite in the
chu'ch to spile the name o' chu'ch-member as fur as ye can holler it.
You been on a railroad train and seen the con-duc-tor havin' a furss
with the feller 'at pays for one seat and tries to hog four, and you've
set back and said, 'My gosh! what a lot o' swine the human race is when
hit gits away f'om home!' And right at that ve'y minute, mebbe, ther'
was forty-five 'r fifty other people in that cyar goin' erlong, mindin'
their own business, and not hoggin' any more 'n they paid for."

Tom smiled. "And you think that's the way it is in the church, do you?"

"I don't think nare' thing about hit; I know sufferin' well that's the
how of it. Lord forgive me! didn't I let one scribe-an'-Pharisee keep me
out o' the Isra'l o' God for nigh on to twenty year?"

"Who was it?" asked Tom, tranquilly curious.

"That ther' Jim Bledsoe, Brother Bill Layne's brother-in-law. He kep'
Brother Bill out, too, for a right smart spell."

Tom was turning the memory pages half-absently.

"Let me see," he said. "Didn't I hear something about your whaling the
everlasting daylights out of Bledsoe sometime last winter?"

Japheth hung his head after the manner of one who has spoiled a good
argument by overstating it.

"That ther's jest like me," he said disgustedly. "I nev' do know enough
to quit when I git thoo. Ain't it somewher's