Before reaching the house he sat down on a wooden bench beneath a tree to rest. It was the first week in May and the leaves were not yet grown. The sun was pouring his hot rays down into the moist earth, and the heat began to feel like summer. As he drank in the beauty and glory of the spring his soul was melted with joy. The fruit trees were laden with the promise of the treasures of the summer and autumn, a cat-bird was singing softly to his mate in the tree over his head, and a mocking-bird seated in the topmost branch of an elm near his cabin home was leading the oratorio of feathered songsters. The wild plum and blackberry briars were in full bloom in the fence comers, and the sweet odour filled the air. He heard his wife singing in the house. “It’s a fine old world after all!” he exclaimed leaning back and half closing his eyes, while a sense of ineffable peace filled his soul. “Peace at last! Thank God! May I never see a gun or a sword, or hear a drum or a fife’s scream on this earth again!” A hound came close wagging his tail and whining for a word of love and recognition. “Well. Bob, old boy, you’re the only one left. You’ll have to chase cotton-tails by yourself now.” Bob’s eyes watered and he licked his master’s hand apparently understanding every word he said. Breaking from his master’s hands the dog ran toward the gate barking, and Tom rose in haste as he recognised the sturdy tread of the Preacher, Rev. John Durham, walking rapidly toward the house. Grasping him heartily by the hand the Preacher said, “Tom, you don’t know how it warms my soul to look into your face again. When you left, I felt like a man who had lost one hand. I’ve found it to-day. You’re the same stalwart Christian full of joy and love. Some men’s religion didn’t stand the wear and tear of war. You’ve come out with your soul like gold tried in the fire. Colonel Gaston wrote me you were the finest soldier in the regiment, and that you were the only Chaplain he had seen that he could consult for his own soul’s cheer. That’s the kind of a deacon to send to the front! I’m proud of you, and you’re still at your old tricks. I met two one-legged soldiers down the road riding your horse away as though you had a stable full at your command. You needn’t apologise or explain, they told me all about it.” “Preacher, it’s good to have the Lord’s messenger speak words like them. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be home again and shake your hand. I tell you it was a comfort to me when I lay awake at night on them battlefields, a wonderin’ what had become of my ole woman and the baby, to recollect that you were here, and how often I’d heard you tell us how the Lord tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. Annie’s been telling me who watched out for her them dark days when there was nothin’ to eat. I reckon you and your wife knows the way to this house about as well as you do to the church.” Tom had pulled the Preacher down on the seat beside him while he said this.