"Do something for you. And if you
need--need money, I shall be glad to let you have it."

"Oh, you couldn't get away without mentioning your god-essence, could
you? Good day."

CHAPTER XXIV.

AT MT. ZION.

On a Sunday morning, Lyman and Warren hired a light spring wagon and
drove out through the green and romantic country that lay stretched
and tumbled along the Mt. Zion road. The great clover-fields, now red
with bloom, looked like a mighty spreading of strawberry-land ready
for the pickers; and a red bird, arising from the ground, might have
been a bloom of a berry suddenly endowed with wings. The air breathed
delicious laziness, and when the horse stopped midway and knee-deep in
a rivulet, he stood with his mouth in the water pretending to swallow,
stealing the enjoyment of the cool current against his legs. The two
men enjoyed the old rascal's trick, agreeing to let him stand there as
long as he practiced the duplicity of keeping his mouth in the stream.
Minnows nibbled at his lips, and he lifted his head, but observing the
men, who leaned out to look at him, he again immersed his mouth and
pretended to swallow. At last, as if ashamed of himself, he pulled
out, trotting briskly in the sun, but hanging back in the shade. Down
in the low places bright-winged flies had come in swarms to hum their
tunes, and on the high ridges where the thin grass was wilting, the
gaunt rabbit sat in the sun. Driving along the low, smooth and sandy
margin of a stream, where the thick bushes bore a bloom that looked
like a long caterpillar, they reached an iron spring, deep red, a
running wound on the face of the earth. They came to an old water
mill, long ago fallen into decay and halted to listen to the water
pouring over the ruined dam. They turned into a broader road, and now
saw numerous vehicles, bright with calico and dun with home-spun, all
moving in one direction, toward the old Mt. Zion meeting house on a
hill. To view one of those places of worship is to gaze upon religious
history. We look at the great trees, the rocks worn smooth, the house
squatting with age, and we no longer regard our country as new. In Mt.
Zion there were loop-holes where men had stood to shoot Indians, while
their wives were muttering a prayer. The old oak benches, made of
split slabs, were almost as hard as iron. A slab, called the altar,
but known as the mourners' bench, had caught the tears of many an
innocent maiden and roistering yout