"I'm going out of preaching, at least for the present. After things get into shape with me again, I may set up to teach people how to live, but just now I can't do it. I've got all I can do to instruct myself. Just one thing more. I owe two or three of you here. I've got the money for William Bacon, James Bartlett and John Jennings. I turn the mare and cutter over to Jacob Bensen, for the note he holds. I hain't got much religion left, but I've got some morality. That's all I want to say now." When he sat down there was a profound hush; then Bacon arose. "That's _man's_ talk, that is! An' I jest want 'o say, Andrew Pill, that you kin jest forgit you owe me anything. An' if ye want any help come to me. Y're jest gittun' ready to preach, 'n' I'm ready to give ye my support." "That's the talk," said Councill. "I'm with ye on that." Pill shook his head. The painful silence which followed was broken by the effusive voice of Wheat: "Let us pray--and remember our lost brother." * * * * * The urgings of the people were of no avail. Mr. Pill settled up his affairs, and moved to Cresco, where he went back into trade with a friend, and for three years attended silently to his customers, lived down their curiosity and studied anew the problem of life. Then he moved away, and no one knew whither. One day, last year, Bacon met Jennings on the road. "Heerd anything o' Pill lately?" "No; have you?" "Waal, yes. Brown told me he ran acrost him down in Eelinoy, doun' well, too." "In dry goods?" "No, preachun'." "Preachun'?" "So Brown said. Kind of a free-f'r-all church, I reckon from what Jedge told me. Built a new church, fills it twice a Sunday. I'd like to hear him, but he's got t' be too big a gun f'r us. Ben studyun', they say; went t' school." Jennings drove sadly and thoughtfully on. "Rather stumps Brother Jennings," laughed Bacon, in his leonine fashion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PART III. WILLIAM BACON'S HIRED MAN: AND DAUGHTER MARIETTA. ... Love and youth pass swiftly: Love sings, And April's sun fans warmer sunlight from his wings. WILLIAM BACON'S MAN I. The yellow March sun lay powerfully on the bare Iowa prairie, where the plowed fields were already turning warm and brown, and only here and there in a corner or on the north side of the fence did the sullen drifts remain, and they were so dark and low that they hardly appeared to break the mellow brown of the fields. There passed also an occasional flock of geese, cheerful harbingers of spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony, wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet sent forth his bugle note.