Pole laughed softly. “I reckon yo' re right, old gal,” he said. “Besides, ef I can' t--ef I ain't man enough to let up with a bottle in the house I won't do it without. But the sight or smell of it is hell itse'f to a lover of the truck. Ef I was to tell you what a little thing started me on this last spree you'd laugh. I went to git a shave in a barber shop, an' when the barber finished he soaked my face in bay-rum an' it got in my mustache. I kept smellin' it all mornin' an' tried to wipe it off, but she wouldn't wipe. All the time I kept walkin' up an' down in front o' Luke Sell-more's bar. Finally I said to myself: 'Well, ef you have to have a bar-room stuck under yore nose all day like a wet sponge, old man, you mought as well have one whar it 'll taste better, an' I slid up to the counter.” The woman sighed audibly, but she made no reply. “Is Billy awake?” Pole suddenly asked. “No, you know he ain't,” said Mrs. Baker. “Well, I want to take 'im in my bed.” Pole stood out on the floor in the sheet of moonlight that fell through the open door. “I wouldn't, Pole,” said the woman. “The pore little feller's been toddlin' about after the others, draggin' bresh to the heap tell he's tired. He drapped to sleep at the table with a piece o' bread in his mouth.” “I won't wake 'im, God bless his little heart,” answered Pole, and he reached down and took the limp child in his arms and pressed him against the side of his face. He carried him tenderly across the room and laid down with him. His wife heard him uttering endearing things to the unconscious child until she fell asleep. XIII [Illustration: 9107] T was the second Sunday in July, and a bright, clear day. In that mountainous region the early mornings of dry summer days are delightfully cool and balmy. Abner Daniel was in his room making preparations to go to meeting at Rock Crest Church. He had put on one of his best white shirts, black silk necktie, doeskin trousers, flowered waistcoat, and long frock-coat, and was proceeding to black his shoes. Into an old pie-pan he raked from the back of the fireplace a quantity of soot and added to it a little water and a spoonful of sorghum molasses from a jug under his bed, stirring the mixture into a paste. This he applied to his shoes with a blacking-brush, rubbing vigorously until quite a decent gloss appeared. It was a thing poverty had taught him just after the war, and to which he still resorted when he forgot to buy blacking. On his way to church, as he was crossing a broom-sedge field and steering for the wood ahead of him, through which a path made a short cut to Rock Crest Church, he overtook Pole Baker swinging along in his shirt-sleeves and big hat. “Well, I 'll be bungfuzzled,” Abner exclaimed, “ef you hain't got on a clean shirt! Church?”