"Looky here, Hen!" broke out Morton, looking up from the meditative scratching of Dolly's fetlocks, "don't you talk that away about mother. She's every inch a lady, and it's a blamed hard life she's had to foller, between pappy's mopin' and the girls all a-dyin' and Lew's bad end--and you and me not promisin' much better. It's mighty little I kin do to make things kind of easy for her, and I'll go to meetin' every day in the week, ef she says so." [Illustration: IN THE STABLE.] "She'll make a Persbyterian outen you, Mort; see ef she don't." "Nary Presbyterian. They's no Presbyterian in me. I'm a hard nut. I would like to be a elder, or a minister, if it was in me, though, just to see the smile spread all over her face whenever she'd think about it. Looky here, Hen! I'll tell you something. Mother's about forty times too good for us. When I had the scarlet fever, and was cross, she used to set on the side of the bed, and tell me stories, about knights and such like, that she'd read about in grandfather's books when she was a girl--jam up good stories, too, you better believe. I liked the knights, because they rode fine horses, and was always ready to fight anything that come along, but always fair and square, you know. And she told me how the knights fit fer their religion, and fer ladies, and fer everybody that had got tromped down by somebody else. I wished I'd been a knight myself. I 'lowed it would be some to fight for somebody in trouble, or somethin' good. But then it seemed as if I couldn't find nothin' worth the fightin' fer. One day I lay a-thinkin', and a-lookin' at mother's white lady hands, and face fit fer a queen's. And in them days she let her hair hang down in long curls, and her black eyes was bright like as if they had a light _inside_ of 'em, you know. She was a queen, _I_ tell you! And all at wunst it come right acrost me, like a flash, that I mout as well be mother's knight through thick and thin; and I've been at it ever since. I 'low I've give her a sight of trouble, with my plaguey wild ways, and I come mighty blamed nigh runnin' this mornin', dogged ef I didn't. But here goes." And with that he proceeded to saddle the restless Dolly, while Henry put the side-saddle on old Blaze, saying, as he drew the surcingle tight, "For my part, I don't want to fight for nobody. I want to do as I dog-on please." He was meditating the fun he would have catching a certain ground-hog, when once his mother should be safely off to meeting.