"Who are you--and where do you live?" "I'm Katy Kelly, and I live at Muddy Point. Our pig is lost again," she sobbed. "We got it home once, but the pen broke, and now it's gone again." "I'm looking for a pig, too," Ann said. "Get up on my horse, and we'll look a little and then I'll take you home." The child climbed on, and the search continued. But the child no longer had eyes for anything but Ann Rutledge. "How did you hurt your eye?" Ann asked kindly. "Pap, he did it. He bunged me with his fist. He said he'd git me again the same way, and stick me in the mud till the buzzards picked my eyes out. I was scared to death. It's horrible to get bunged and beat. I begged Maw to keep Pap from beatin' me again, but he beats her, too, and she said nobody but God could keep him from beatin' me up. Just as he was about to git me, here comes God with the longest legs on earth, and he reached out his long arms an' got Pap and shook all the red eye out of him he's poured in fer a year. Then he ducked him until he got sobered up. Mam says Pap won't beat me no more, she'll bet on it, 'cause God--He can git anywhere on them legs, in twenty minutes." This story was told between snubs and sobs, and the dirty dress sleeve was called into use between sentences to dry the tearful eyes and dripping nose. Ann Rutledge was interested. "So God came to help you?" "Yep--his name is Abe Lincoln--he told Pap." "Abe Lincoln!" Ann exclaimed. Then she rode a long way without speaking. She was thinking. The name brought the picture of a strong, elemental man, seemingly older than his years, a man who had said he was going to play fair with God, a man whom Nance Cameron had pronounced the homeliest creature that God ever put breath in. "There's home," the child presently said, "and, _there's the pig_." Ann looked. A small black pig with a white spot on its flank. She knew the pig. But when she dismounted to examine the pig she found its ear cut with two slits and a cross. "We found it in the pen. At first I couldn't believe it," Mrs. Kelly exclaimed. "It looked a bit fatter than mine, but it's ear was fresh marked; I cut it myself. And I thanked God it had come back." "You thanked God," Ann observed as if to herself. "Yes--for it's our only winter meat. And when it got out again I was sick over it--and likely it will get away some more, for Kelly never fixed a pen that would hold, in his life." "I'll help you fix the pen," Ann said, and she did, meantime wondering about the pig, for she would have sworn it was her own. CHAPTER XI PETER CARTWRIGHT ARRIVES It was on a September day that the famous Peter Cartwright jogged into New Salem on a stiff-legged pony, and drew up before Rutledge Inn. His visit had been long expected and great preparations had been made for the camp-meeting which was to be held in the Springfield district in a few days.