"Ma'm, I didn't know but you mout be one these here women preachers. One of 'em come up into my neighborhood an' it seemed that befo' she come nature was a smilin' like she was waitin' fur her sweetheart. Well, me an' my wife went to hear her preach, an' she talked right well--never hearn a woman talk better--an' she cotch the folks. Worse than that, she cotch my wife an' turned my home into a hell, an' nature shut her eyes an' all war dark fur me. Nothin' would do my wife, but she must go out an' preach too. I begged her--told her that I loved her better than I did forty gospels, an' I did; but she would go. I told her not to come back--but one night about three months atterward, when it was a pourin' down rain, an' my little child was a cryin', there come a knock on the door, an'--an' I know'd. I opened it an' there she was an' as I was a huggin' of her, she says, 'Jeff, I b'l'eve a woman's duty is at home. Christ was a man.' Ma'm, I kin haul you all the way down there. I know where the jail is--I've been in there--an' I'll take you right straight to it." "What did they take you there for?" "It war a funny thing. I went up in the hill country, fur up from my home, an' the man what I stopped with was a maker of licker--an' atter dark I went with him to his still an' helped him fetch some wood for the fire; an' jest as I flung down a turn, bang, bang, an' here was the government men. Well, they tuck us down, an' of course I know'd I'd git outen it for I hadn't made no licker, but, bless you, the jedge sent me to the penitentiary for a year; an' ever sense then my wife she 'lows that I'm afeared to fetch up enough wood at home. Ain't a cryin', air you' ma'm?" "They air goin' to hang Jasper," she moaned. "You don't mean Jasper Starbuck. Well, I'll be blamed," he added, reading her answer in her tear-streaming eyes. "I hope not, ma'm. Did you ever hear him say anythin' about Jeff Waters? Mebby not, fur he never ricollecks sich things. But he toted me off the field at Shiloh when the bullets was like a swarm of bees. That's how I come to have this," he said, and raising his left leg, hit it a resounding whack with the hickory staff of his whip. "Timber, ma'm." That night they were given shelter at a farmer's house, and were on their journey again by the rising of the sun, but shortly afterward the cart ran into a rut and one of the wheels was broken. Margaret petulantly wondered if the Lord were trying to keep her from reaching Nashville, and Jeff Waters replied: "Well, if He tries right hard, He'll hold you back all right." In the woods he cut a pole, braced his axletree, and dragged the cart four miles to a blacksmith's shop, and two hours afterward, having lost much time precious to the woman, they were again jogging along the road. They put up at a tavern at night, Jeff sleeping in his cart under a shed, explaining that he was now close enough to town to warrant such precaution against thievery.