“They’re a tollable spry old couple,” he said, “but”—and he wheeled a barrel of potatoes alongside as a suggestion of means of getting into bed. It would take a readier pen than mine to enumerate and describe all the gifts that were brought to that plenishing. The cupboard door refused to close upon the array of ham, hominy, and honey (the three h’s of the mountaineer), the salt-rising bread, and the soda biscuit. Major Greenlee was a carpenter. For half a day he planed, sawed, and hammered in a corner and when his work took form it was a capacious meal bin. When bagfuls of corn meal had been emptied into it till it was “plumb full” they all surveyed it with satisfaction and “reckoned the gourd wouldn’t scrape the bottom of that before spring.” All day long pedestrians and vehicles had been coming and going before the old house as never before in its history and yet when the sun had set the sky on fire behind the Bald, the gathered people were still awaiting an arrival. They scanned a mountain road above them, visible only in short lengths where it emerged from the forests into the clearings. “I see ’em!” a far-sighted old man shouted with a boy’s enthusiasm, “I see Colonel Ledbetter’s white mules! Now they’re behind May’s Peak, you’ll see ’em come out on t’other side.” And so they watched them from point to point and every time they came into view a squad ran in to re-inspect the cabin and see that every thing was in order. At last the white mules stood before the door. Colonel Ledbetter and Grover Cleveland sat on the front seat of the wagon, and on chairs behind them sat Preacher Carr and his wife. Strong hands assisted the wife to alight, but the preacher sprang over the wheel to greet his people. They crowded round him and the young cried, “Merry Christmas,” and the old said, “Welcome Home.” They seated the pair beside their old beloved fireside. They were eight years older than when they had left it. The preacher had “held his own,” but when they took off the good wife’s bonnet her hair showed very white. A tender hand smoothed it. “We are growing old,” said the preacher, but they told him that the gospel that he preached and lived would never grow old. They told him too of repairs to be made in the old church; it would look just as it used to look but over the door there would be the inscription: THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself. The tree was stripped; the white mules were headed homeward; old man Ledbetter gathered up his reins and a tired little lad nestled close to his side. “Wake up, Grover Cleveland, wake up! Don’t you hear ’em singing! Jine in, Grover Cleveland, jine in!” Within the cabin a chorus swelled; without, one thin little voice piped free and clear: “Crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, Lord of all.” III UNCONSCIOUS MENTALITY