“Well, well, well!” exclaimed Uncle Billy, in a tone that seemed to combine reflection with astonishment. “Jerry Moseley’s son; I disremember the day when Brother Moseley came into my mind, an’ yit, now that I hear his name bandied about up here on the hill, it carries me back to ole times. He weren’t much of a preacher on his own hook, but let ’im foller along for to clench the sermon, an’ his match couldn’t be foun’ in them days. Yit, Jerry was a man of peace, an’ here’s his son a-gwine about with guns an’ pistols, an’ what not, a-tryin’ to give peaceable folks a smell of war.” “Oh, no!” said Captain Moseley, laughing; “we are just hunting up some old acquaintances,—some friends of ours that we’d like to see.” “Well,” said Uncle Billy, sinking his knife deep into the soft pine bark, “it’s bad weather for a frolic, an’ it ain’t much better for a straight-out, eve’y-day call. Speshually up here on the hill, where the ground is so wet and slipperyfied. It looks like you’ve come a mighty long ways for to pay a friendly call. An’ yit,” the old man continued, looking up at the captain with a smile that well became his patriarchal face, “thar ain’t a cabin on the hill whar you won’t be more than welcome. Yes, sir; wheresomever you find a h’a’thstone, thar you’ll find a place to rest.” “So I have heard,” said the captain. “But maybe you can cut our journey short. We have a message for Israel Spurlock.” Immediately Captain Moseley knew that the placid and kindly face of Uncle Billy Powers had led him into making a mistake. He knew that he had mentioned Israel Spurlock’s name to the wrong man at the wrong time. There was a scarcely perceptible frown on Uncle Billy’s face as he raised it from his piece of pine bark, which was now assuming the shape of a horseman’s pistol, and he looked at the captain through half-closed eyelids. “Come, now,” he exclaimed, “ain’t Israel Spurlock in the war? Didn’t a posse ketch ’im down yander in Jasper an’ take an’ cornscrip’ ’im into the army? Run it over in your mind now! Ain’t Israel Spurlock crippled some’r’s, an’ ain’t your message for his poor ole mammy?” “No, no,” said the captain, laughing, and trying to hide his inward irritation. “Not so?” exclaimed Uncle Billy. “Well, sir, you must be shore an’ set me right when I go wrong; but I’ll tell you right pine blank, I’ve had Israel Spurlock in my min’ off an’ on’ ev’ry since they run him down an’ kotch him an’ drug ’im off to war. He was weakly like from the time he was a boy, an’ when I heard you call forth his name, I allowed to myself, says I, ‘Israel Spurlock is sick, an’ they’ve come atter his ole mammy to go an’ nuss him.’ That’s the idee that riz up in my min’.” A man more shrewd than Captain Moseley would have been deceived by the bland simplicity of Uncle Billy’s tone.