Mid-afternoon of the tenth of June, John, laying aside his cradle, sickle in hand was gleaning the last of the wheat about the fence corners and stumps of the two-acre field. It is the first they have grown since leaving Virginia. He planted it the October before, thinking of his wife to be and his mother. Corn pone bread, baked in the Dutch oven, heated by being buried in the red hot coals of the great fireplace was all right for the Colonel and himself, in fact, they preferred it; but Dorothy and his mother should have wheaten bread, which could now be ground and bolted at the water mill at Cumberland Falls. As almost in tenderness he bound and knotted the last bundle, some one near called. “John! John!” Thrilled, he turned, Dorothy stood before him—and he caught her and held her in his arms. “Father Rice and mother are at the house. You have been assigned to this district, in which you are to live and establish new churches. It is nearly a hundred miles square; there is only one church and you are the only preacher. You are to begin work on the first of July; and so to be with you the longer before you leave, I have come to you, John. Father Rice and mother thought I should do this. We shall live here as it is near the center of your district. He has all the papers ready and must go on at once to Powell’s Valley, where he preaches tonight. Kiss me as much as you wish, but hurry, John. He is waiting to marry us; if you are not ready, he can do it when he returns in about a week—I thought that would hurry you a bit.” John, absent-minded in his happiness, picked up the sickle, and carrying it in his left hand, with his right arm around Dorothy’s waist, hastened towards the house. There, after greetings, and without further preparation on John’s part, other than removing his hat, they were married. At the close of the service, Father Rice, in his prayer, called attention to the sickle, which unconsciously John still held, and when he released Dorothy’s hand, had transferred from his left to his right hand. “* * * Oh, Lord! We know that you will bless this union of faithful hearts; and the work which thy harvester will soon assume. As he now stands ready, make him fit and ready for thy harvest in this his field, where the grain is ripe and waiting; and may he never leave it except to gladden a heart as he has done today, standing as now prepared to return. * * *” Only those who love as did these two, can understand the happiness of that Valley honeymoon, which lasted until John was forced to go to work. Though their journey was but to the Pinnacle and home again and the bride’s trousseau in the main of homespun and buckskin, they knew of nothing more and wished for no greater blessings than were theirs.