But at breakfast the next morning, when the family were about pitching
into their food as usual without ceremony, the visitor spoke in an
imperious tone and with lifted hand. "_Wait!_ Let us look to the Lord
for His blessing."

They waited till the grace was said, but it threw a depressing
atmosphere over the group; evidently they considered the trouble begun.
At the end of the meal the minister asked:--

"Have you a Bible in the house?"

"I reckon there's one around somewhere. Elly, go 'n see 'f y' can't
raise one," said Mrs. Buttles, indifferently.

"Have you any objection to family devotion?" asked Pill, as the book was
placed in his hands by the girl.

"No; have all you want," said Bacon, as he rose from the table and
passed out the door.

"I guess I'll see the thing through," said the hand.

"It ain't just square to leave the women folks to bear the brunt of it."

It was shortly after breakfast that the Elder concluded he'd walk up to
Brother Jennings's and see about church matters.

"I shall expect you, Brother Bacon, to be at the service at 2.30."

"All right, go ahead expectun'," responded Bacon, with an inscrutable
sidewise glance.

"You promised, you remember?"

"The--devil--I did!" the old man snarled.

The Elder looked back with a smile, and went off whistling in the warm,
bright morning.

II

The schoolhouse down on the creek was known as "Hell's Corners" all
through the county, because of the frequent rows that took place therein
at "corkuses" and the like, and also because of the number of teachers
that had been "ousted" by the boys. In fact, it was one of those places
still to be found occasionally in the West, far from railroads and
schools, where the primitive ignorance and ferocity of men still prowl,
like the panthers which are also found sometimes in the deeps of the
Iowa timber lands.

The most of this ignorance and ferocity, however, was centred in the
family of Dixons, a dark-skinned, unsavory group of Missourians. It
consisted of old man Dixon and wife, and six sons, all man-grown,
great, gaunt, sinewy fellows, with no education, but superstitious as
savages. If anything went wrong in "Hell's Corners" everybody knew that
the Dixons were "on the rampage again." The school-teachers were warned
against the Dixons, and the preachers were besought to convert the
Dixons.

In fact, John Jennings, as he drove Pill to the schoolhouse next day,
said:--

"If you can convert th