through the bend of his
arm, led the way down the flower-bordered path. "Posies are the
brightness of a body's days," she said softly. "You can't just set them
out and they'll bloom big. You have to work with them. Posies and human
creatures are a heap alike. Sometimes they have to be pampered. Like
Dyke here," she smiled up at her aged mate. "I had to understand his
ways, else I'd never have tamed him," she persisted. "He's the last
surviving one of his company--the Logan Wildcats." Aunt Sallie's blue
eyes lighted with pride. "I like to think of him outlasting me too."

I'd remember them always as they stood there in the sunset with the
golden glow and scarlet sage and the snow-white pretty-by-night all
about them, the two smiling contentedly as I waved them good-by far down
at the bend of the road.

It was the last time I ever saw Uncle Dyke alive. The next May--1938--he
died. I was gratified that it fell to my lot to attend his funeral. And
what a worthy eulogy the Reverend John McNeely, whom Uncle Dyke always
referred to as "my son in the Gospel," preached, taking for his text "My
servant, Moses, is dead," a text that the two had agreed upon long
before the Good Shepherd of the Hills passed away.

That day when the sermon was ended the great throng that filled the
valley and the hillsides, gathering about the baptismal pool he himself
had fashioned, sang Uncle Dyke's favorite hymn. Their voices blending
like the notes of a giant organ swelled and filled the deep valley:

Like a star in the morning in its beauty,
Like the sun is the Bible to my soul,
Shining clear on the way of life and beauty,
As I hasten on my journey to the goal.

'Tis a lamp in the wilderness of sorrow,
'Tis a light on the weary pilgrim's way,
It will guide to the bright eternal morrow,
Shining more and more unto the Perfect Day.

'Tis the voice of a friend forever near me,
In the toil and the battle here below,
In the gloom of the valley, it shall cheer me,
Till the glory of the kingdom I shall know.

I shall stand in its glory and its beauty,
Till the earth and the heavens pass away,
Ever telling the wondrous, blessed story
Of the loving Lamb, the only living way.

Uncle Dyke chose also his own grave site in the family burying ground
overlookin