frank and
manly.
"Of course you can stay as long as you want to," said Jasper, "but I
reckon you'll have to put on some homespun and a checked hickory
shirt or two, befo' you kin put up with our fare."
"Now, please, don't worry about that," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up. "We
can eat parched corn if necessary. We have come from the city to rest,
and--"
"Rest," Jasper broke in, looking at the young fellow. "Why, he don't
look like he ever done anythin'. Never plowed a day in your life, did
you?"
"I must confess that I haven't," Tom replied.
"Thar, I knowed it." And then speaking to Mrs. Mayfield, he added:
"All right, mam, we'll do the best we kin fur you. Got the same names
here that you had down whar you come from?"
Tom laughed. His aunt reproved him with a look. "Why, of course.
What object would we have in changing them?"
"Don't ask me, mam. I never know what object nobody has--ain't my
business. Here, Kintchin," he called to the negro, "take them trunks
outen the wagin and then you may go to sleep ag'in."
Kintchin came round a corner of the house, rubbing his eyes. "Talkin'
ter me, suh?"
"You hearn me."
"Said suthin' erbout gwine ter sleep. I jest wanter tell you dat I ain't
slep' none fur er week, an' ef you 'sinuate at me--"
"Go on there. Now mam, ef you'll jest step in we'll do the best we kin."
"Oh, thank you. How courteous you are."
"How what? I reckon you better git along without much o' that. Don't
want nobody put on a strain. Margaret, here are some folks," he
continued as his wife made her appearance. "Jest tell 'em howdy and let
'em alone."
She bowed to Tom and to Mrs. Mayfield. "And befo' you make
yo'selves at home," she said, "I hope you'll l'arn not to pay no attention
to Jasper. Lou, haven't you spoke to the folks?"
"No'm, but I can. Howdy."
CHAPTER II.
JIM, THE PREACHER.
During the rest of the day the visitors were permitted to amuse
themselves. Lou was shy, Margaret was distantly respectful and the old
man went about in leisurely attendance upon his affairs, not yet wholly
unsuspicious. A week before the arrival of the "folks from off yander,"
as the strangers were termed, there had come to Jasper's house a
nephew, Jim Starbuck, a mountain-side preacher. His air bespoke that
gentleness resultant of passion bound and gagged. At eighteen he had
been known as the terror of the creek. Without avail old Jasper had
argued with him, with fresh scalps dangling at his own belt. One night
Jim turned a revival meeting into a fight with bench legs, beat a
hard-hearted money lender until he was taken home almost a mass of
pulp. At nineteen he turned a hapless school teacher out of the school
house, nailed up the door, and because the teacher muttered against it,
threw the pedagogue into the creek. At twenty he seemed to hear a
voice coming from afar. A man going to mill said that he saw Jim
beside a log on his knees in the woods, praying; he was called a liar,
knocked down his insulter and went on with his grist. He had spoken
the truth, for on the night following, Jim arose in the congregation,
renounced his reckless ways, and with a defiance of the world that
among the righteous awaked applause, he came forward and knelt at
the mourners' bench. His religion "took," they said, as if speaking of
vaccination, and before long he entered the pulpit, ready gently to crack
the irreligious heads of former companions still stubborn in the ways of
iniquity. From behind a plum bush, in the corner of the fence, he had
seen Mrs. Mayfield and had blinked, as if dazzled by a great light. Nor
was it till the close of day that he had the courage to come into her
presence, and then for a moment he gazed--and vanished. Old Jasper
found him mumbling beneath the moon.
"Lost anythin', Jim?"
"Nothing that I ever thought I had, Uncle Jasper."
"Look like a man that is huntin' fur his terbacker."
"I've quit tobacco long ago, Uncle Jasper."
"Huh, give that up, too? Then you have been hit hard. But atter all, my
boy, a lick that ain't hard don't count fur much. Understand I believe in
yo' Book all right, but not as the most of 'em reads it. The most of 'em
reads it so as to make you do the things you don't want to do, and what
they want you to do. A good many of 'em think it was writ fur them
ag'in you. Findin' new picturs on the moon, Jim?
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