d; "Peace an' good-will!"

The words seemed to epitomize all religion, all value, all hope, and
somehow they so dwelt in his mind that the next day he was moved to add
a personal message to old Ross Gilhooley in sending the more important
information to Bruce.

"Let on ter Ross," he charged the envoy, "ez--ez--that thar jedgmint an'
execution issued war jes' formal--ye mought say--jes' ter hev all the
papers reg'lar."

By virtue of more attrition with the world the mail-rider was more
sophisticated than his enemy, and sooth to say, more sophistical.

"Ross is writ-proof, the old fool, though he war minded ter cut me out'n
my levy if he could! But waal, jes' tell him from me ez we-uns hev hed a
heap o' pleasure in the baby's company in the Chris'mus, an' we-uns
expec' ter borry him some whenst they all gits home!"

* * * * *

To the child's kindred the news was as if he had risen from the dead,
and the gratitude of the Gilhooleys to Petrie knew no bounds. They had
accounted the baby drowned when, missing him, they had retraced their
way, finding naught but a bit of old blanket on which he had lain, close
to the verge of the cruel river. Ross Gilhooley, softened and rendered
tractable by exile and sorrow, upon his return lent himself to an
affected warmth toward Peter Petrie which gradually assumed all the
fervors of sincerity. The neighbors indeed were moved to say that the
two friends and ancient enemies, when both on all fours and barking for
the delight of the baby, were never so little like dogs in all their
lives.

Thus a child shall lead them.

THE CRUCIAL MOMENT

A mere moment seems an inconsiderable factor in life--only its
multiplication attaining importance and signifying time. It could never
have occurred to Walter Hoxer that all his years of labor, the
aggregation of the material values of industry, experience, skill,
integrity, could be nullified by this minimum unit of space--as sudden,
as potent, as destructive, as a stroke of lightning. But after the fact
it did not remind him of any agency of the angry skies; to him it was
like one of the obstructions of the river engineers to divert the course
of the great Mississippi, a mattress-spur, a thing insignificant in
itself, a mere trifle of woven willow wands, set up at a crafty angle,
against the tumultuous current. Yet he had seen the swirling waves, in
their oncoming like innumerable herds of wild horses, h