"I wouldn't waste any time in thought on that subject, if I were you," said Caleb; "for what our farmers don't know about hewin' would take you or any other man a long time to find out. How do you s'pose all the beams an' standin' timbers of all the houses an' barns built in this county was made in the days before there were any saw-mills nearer than twenty miles? How do you s'pose some of the log houses here are so tight in the joints that they need no chinkin'? I've heard of some Eastern people bein' born with gold spoons in their mouths; well, it's just as true that hundreds of thousands of Westerners were born with axes in their hands. The axe was their only tool for years, an' they got handy enough with it to do 'most anythin', from buildin' a house to sharpenin' a lead-pencil!" "Good for Caleb!" shouted a farmer's wife, and Truett made haste to say:-- "I apologize to the entire West, and will put my mind at ease about the ties." The subject of conversation was changed by an irruption of farmers and citizens, who wished to talk more about the new railroad, and who rightly thought that the place where the engineer could be found was the most likely source of information. The questions were almost innumerable, and Truett, who was quite as excited as any of them, told all he knew about what certain specified spur roads had done for farming and wooded districts no more promising than Claybanks; so the informal meeting became even more enthusiastic than the gathering at the court-house had been, for the farmers' wives added fuel to the flame. The spectacle impressed Grace deeply, well though she knew the people; for from most of the faces was banished, for the time being, the weary, resigned expression peculiar to a large portion of the farming population of the newer states. Caleb, too, long though he had known all the men and women in the throng, had his heart so entirely in his face that Grace whispered to Mary:-- "Do look at your husband! Did you ever see him look so handsome, until to-day?" A strong, warm, nervous hand-clasp was the only reply for a moment; then Mary whispered:-- "All the men here are fine-looking!--their faces are so expressive! I've not noticed it until to-day. Where did Claybanks get such people?" "Say all that to your husband, if you wish to fill his heart to overflowing," said Grace, "and then, to please me, repeat it to Doctor Taggess, or tell both of them at once." To share in the enjoyment, she succeeded in getting Caleb and the Doctor close to her and Mary, and quoted to them:-- "'Listen, my children, and you shall hear'--now, Mary!" "I don't wonder that you're impressed," the Doctor replied, when Mary's outburst concluded. His own eyes were gleaming, and Mary said afterward that his face was her ideal of a hero at the moment of victory.