e Dixon boys, Elder, I'll give you the best horse
in my barn."

"I work not for such hire," said Mr. Pill, with a look of deep solemnity
on his face, belied, indeed, by a twinkle in his small, keen eye--a
twinkle which made Milton Jennings laugh candidly.

There was considerable curiosity, expressed by a murmur of lips and
voices, as the minister's tall figure entered the door and stood for a
moment in a study of the scene before him. It was a characteristically
Western scene. The women sat on one side of the schoolroom, the men on
the other; the front seats were occupied by squirming boys and girls in
their Sunday splendor.

On the back, to the right, were the young men, in their best vests, with
paper collars and butterfly neckties, with their coats unbuttoned, their
hair plastered down in a fascinating wave on their brown foreheads. Not
a few were in their shirt-sleeves. The older men sat immediately between
the youths and boys, talking in hoarse whispers across the aisles about
the state of the crops and the county ticket, while the women in much
the same way conversed about the children and raising onions and
strawberries. It was their main recreation, this Sunday meeting.

"Brethren!" rang out the imperious voice of the minister, "let us pray."

The audience thoroughly enjoyed the Elder's prayer. He was certainly
gifted in that direction, and his petition grew genuinely eloquent as
his desires embraced the "ends of the earth and the utterm'st parts of
the seas thereof." But in the midst of it a clatter was heard, and five
or six strapping fellows filed in with loud thumpings of their brogans.

Shortly after they had settled themselves with elaborate impudence on
the back seat, the singing began. Just as they were singing the last
verse, every individual voice wavered and all but died out in
astonishment to see William Bacon come in--an unheard-of thing! And with
a clean shirt, too! Bacon, to tell the truth, was feeling as much out of
place as a cat in a bath-tub, and looked uncomfortable, even shamefaced,
as he sidled in, his shapeless hat gripped nervously in both hands;
coatless and collarless, his shirt open at his massive throat. The girls
tittered, of course, and the boys hammered each other's ribs, moved by
the unusual sight. Milton Jennings, sitting beside Bettie Moss, said:--

"Well! may I jump straight up and never come down!"

And Shep Watson said: "May I never see the back o' my neck!" Which
ple