m. You mus'n' feel bad ef things don't go yo' way f'om
de ve'y fust. Have you got a mammy?"

The question was very abrupt, and a lump suddenly jumped up in
Dokesbury's throat and pushed the water into his eyes. He did have a
mother away back there at home. She was all alone, and he was her heart
and the hope of her life.

"Yes," he said, "I've got a little mother up there in Ohio."

"Well, I's gwine to be yo' mothah down hyeah; dat is, ef I ain't too
rough an' common fu' you."

"Hush!" exclaimed the preacher, and he got up and took the old lady's
hand in both of his own. "You shall be my mother down here; you shall
help me, as you have done to-day. I feel better already."

"I knowed you would," and the old face beamed on the young one. "An' now
jes' go out de do' dah an' wash yo' face. Dey's a pan an' soap an' watah
right dah, an' hyeah's a towel; den you kin go right into yo' room, fu'
I knows you want to be erlone fu' a while. I'll fix yo' suppah while you
rests."

He did as he was bidden. On a rough bench outside the door, he found a
basin and a bucket of water with a tin dipper in it. To one side, in a
broken saucer, lay a piece of coarse soap. The facilities for copious
ablutions were not abundant, but one thing the minister noted with
pleasure: the towel, which was rough and hurt his skin, was,
nevertheless, scrupulously clean. He went to his room feeling fresher
and better, and although he found the place little and dark and warm, it
too was clean, and a sense of its homeness began to take possession of
him.

The room was off the main living-room into which he had been first
ushered. It had one small window that opened out on a fairly neat yard.
A table with a chair before it stood beside the window, and across the
room--if the three feet of space which intervened could be called
"across"--stood the little bed with its dark calico quilt and white
pillows. There was no carpet on the floor, and the absence of a
washstand indicated very plainly that the occupant was expected to wash
outside. The young minister knelt for a few minutes beside the bed, and
then rising cast himself into the chair to rest.

It was possibly half an hour later when his partial nap was broken in
upon by the sound of a gruff voice from without saying, "He's hyeah, is
he--oomph! Well, what's he ac' lak? Want us to git down on ouah knees
an' crawl to him? If he do, I reckon he'll fin' dat Mt. Hope ain't de
place fo' him."

The mini