mother's
hand and again took up the small volumes. As he held them, a thought
flashed through his mind, yet hardly a thought,--it was more of an
illumination,--like a vista suddenly opened through what had seemed an
impenetrable, impalpable wall, beyond which lay a joy yet to be, but
before unseen. In that instant of time, a vision appeared to him of what
life might bring, glorified by a tender light as of red fire seen
through a sweet, blue, obscuring mist, and making thus a halo about the
one figure of the vision outlined against it, clear and fine.

"'Pears like you find somethin' right interestin' in that book; be you
readin' hit?"

"I find a glorious prophecy. Was your first husband born and raised here
as you were?"

"Not on this spot; but he was born an' raised like we-uns here in the
mountains--ovah th'other side Pisgah. I seed him first when I wa'n't
more'n seventeen. He come here fer--I don't rightly recollect what, only
he had been deer huntin' an' come late evenin' he drapped in. He had
lost his dog, an' he had a bag o' birds, an' he axed maw could she cook
'em an' give him suppah, an' maw, she took to him right smaht.

"Aftah suppah--I remember like hit war last evenin'--he took gran'paw's
old fiddle an' tuned hit up an' sot thar an' played everything you evah
heered. He played like the' war birds singin' an' rain fallin', an' like
the wind when hit goes wailin' round the house in the pine tops--soft
an' sad--like that-a-way. Gran'paw's old fiddle. I used to keer a heap
fer hit, but one time Farwell got religion, an' he took an' broke hit
'cause he war 'feared Frale mount larn to play an' hit would be a
temptation of the devil to him."

"Well, I say! That was a crime, you know."

"Yes. Sometimes I lay here an' say what-all did I marry Farwell fer,
anyway. Well--every man has his failin's, the' say, an' Farwell, he sure
had hisn."

"May I keep these books a short time? I will be very careful of them.
You know that, or you would not have shown them to me."

"You take them as long as you like. Hit ain't like hit used to be. Books
is easy come by these days--too easy, I reckon. Cassandry, she brung a
whole basketful of 'em with her. Thar they be on that cheer behin' my
spinnin'-wheel."

"Was the basket full of books? So, that was why it was so heavy. Might I
have a look at them?"

"Look 'em ovah all you want to. She won't keer, I reckon. She hain't had
a mite o' time since she come home to look at