“How are ye, Toot?” was her greeting as she placed the chair for him between a jar of fresh honey and a barrel of sorghum molasses. “How is the sore eyes over yore way?” “Toler’ble,” he answered, as he leaned back against the counter and fanned himself with his slouch hat. “Mine is about through it, but the Tye childern is a sight. Pizen-oak hain’t a circumstance.” “What did ye use?” “Copperas an’ sweet milk. It is the best thing I’ve struck. I don’t want any o’ that peppery eye-wash ’bout my place. It’d take the hide off ’n a mule’s hind leg.” “Now yore a-talkin’,” and Bill Odell went to the water-bucket on the end of the counter. He threw his tobacco-quid away, noisily washed out his mouth, and took a long drink from the gourd dipper. Then Bart Callaway and Amos Sanders, who had arrived half an hour before and had walked down to take a look at Filmore’s fish-pond, came in together. Both were whittling sticks and looking cool and comfortable. “We are all heer,” said Odell, and he added his hat to his coat and the pile of weights on the scale-beam, and put his right foot on the rung of his chair. “I reckon we mought as well proceed.” At these words the men who had arrived last carefully stowed their hats away under their chairs and leaned forward expectantly. Mrs. Filmore glided noiselessly to a corner behind the counter, and with folded arms stood ready to hear all that was to be said. “Did anybody inform Ab of the object of this meeting?” asked Odell. They all looked at Filmore, and he transferred their glances to his wife. She flushed under their scrutiny and awkwardly twisted her fat arms together. “Sister Calihan wuz in here this mornin’,” she deposed in an uneven tone. “I ‘lowed somebody amongst ’em ort to know what you-uns wuz up to, so I up an’ told ‘er.” “What did she have to say?” asked Odell, bending over the scales to spit at a crack in the floor, but not removing his eyes from the witness. “Law, I hardly know what she didn’t say! I never seed a woman take on so. Ef the last bit o’ kin she had on earth wuz suddenly wiped from the face o’ creation, she couldn’t ‘a’ tuk it more to heart. Sally wuz with ‘er, an’ went on wuss ‘an her mammy.” “What ailed Sally?” Mrs. Filmore smiled irrepressibly. “I reckon you ort to know, Brother Odell,” she said, under the hand she had raised to hide her smile. “Do you reckon she hain’t heerd o’ yore declaration that Eph cayn’t marry in no heretic family while yo ‘re above ground? It wuz goin’ the round at singin’-school two weeks ago, and thar hain’t been a thing talked sence.” “I hain’t got a ioty to retract,” replied Odell, looking down into the upturned faces for approval. “I’d as soon see a son o’ mine in his box. Misfortune an’ plague is boun’ to foller them that winks at infidelity in any disguise ur gyarb.”