He started down the aisle, his huge head with its wild hair bent above the violin, and from the little great instrument came the sounds of marching feet. They were victorious feet; feet marching in brotherhood; faithful, determined feet. Falteringly, shyly, the children fell in with him. It was not, indeed, in human power to resist that march. Carin, joining with light step, Azalea, marching more seriously, courage and determination in her face, removed the last hesitation of the laggards. Skully Simms’ tears dried on his swollen face. He got up, half shame-facedly and fell into the march, and so marching forgot his shame and his resentment. And Bud Coulter, springing at last to his feet, tramped with the others. He was, after all, a “good sport.” He had spoken out his feelings, and now, head up—just a touch defiantly—he fell in line. They all went out of the schoolhouse so, and on to where the various paths diverged, running this way and that over the mountainside, to end in the little cabins where the children lived. Haystack sped them on their way. Then he dropped his instrument and turned to Azalea who stood beside him. “Well, honey-bird,” he said with fatherly tenderness, “how does the world treat you?” CHAPTER IX THE RESCUE “There ain’t many men as inquisitive as I be,” remarked Haystack Thompson as he sat at Aunt Zillah’s supper table that evening. “’Tain’t the kind of inquisitiveness that takes men to big towns, nor the kind that takes men to sea. It’s jest the kind that has to know what’s going on in the neighborhood.” “But you must admit,” said Carin teasingly, “that your neighborhood is rather a large one.” “So it is, so it is,” confessed Mr. Thompson. “It includes these yere mountains in all their outcroppings in the two Carolinas. I make it my business to know what’s going on in them whenever possible. Earthquakes, funerals, singings, weddings, corn huskings—anything out of the usual—demand my attention.” “Well, I’m glad _we_ received it, at any rate,” said Azalea. “Did you think we were getting into mischief? The truth is, all had been perfectly quiet till you arrived on the scene.” “But it was a dishonorable peace,” roared Mr. Thompson. “The enemy had you. You were in league with the powers of darkness. Now, freedom and honor sit upon your banners.” “So they do,” said Miss Zillah. “I declare, whenever I thought of that poor little boy who honed to come to school and wasn’t allowed, it seemed to me I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to go out and do something about it, but I didn’t know how.”