got mo' l'arnin' than we have, but we kin
skeer up a mad dog an' git rid o' him as quick as the best of 'em. An' I
reckon by this time you find that our affairs ain't so uneventful as you
put it. Young feller," he went on, speaking to Tom, "I like the way you
acted under fire. Thar was a time when I believed that a feller with
store clothes on was easy skeered, and I laughed when I seed 'em j'inin'
the army--'lowed they would w'ar out in a day or two; but they
outmarched us fellers that follered the plow an' when the time come they
tuck their red medicine an' never whimpered. Ricolleck one little chap
that didn't look like he was strong enough to pull up a handful o' white
clover--snatched up a flag, butted his way to the front and put his
colors on the breastworks o' the inimy."

"I thank you," Tom replied. "But you don't seem to be astonished that
the preacher wasn't scared."

"Who, Jim? Oh, no. Jim's a Starbuck."

"Don't make me out any worse than I naturally am, Uncle Jasper," said
Jim, smiling in that mild consciousness of humor sometimes necessary and
always appropriate to the pulpit.

Mrs. Mayfield smiled upon him, and bade him come with her to the place
where the short shade of noon-time was napping on the hill-top. He
clutched his hat and followed her and old Jasper snorted. "Follers her
like a pet lamb," said the old man to his wife when Tom and Lou also had
strolled off. "I mean Jim do. But to tell you the truth she'll never
marry him; don't know that he wants her, you understand, but if he do
he's in a bad fix. She's good and as putty as a red-bird, but I don't
reckon that she'd like to be the wife of a mountain preacher. And come
to think about it, I don't see why a woman would want to be the wife of
any preacher--much. Not that the preacher wouldn't be good to her, but
because she'd be a settin' herse'f up as a mark fur all the other women
in the neighborhood. Ef a preacher's wife laugh they say she ain't a
takin' no intrust in church work, an' ef she is sorrowful they say it's
all put on."

"Jasper, you don't know what you're a talkin' about, but you air
puffeckly nat'ral as long as you're a sayin' suthin' ag'in women. You
don't understand 'em at all."

"And ef I did I'd be smarter than old Solomon. He had fo' or five
hundred of 'em about him and he didn't understand even the most foolish
one of 'em. How air you goin' to understand a critter that don't
understand herse'f? But I tell you this here