The Leatherwood God

had been affable with all; but he had slipped through the hands he shook and had parried the invitations made him. Gillespie had not seemed to invite him, and his shy daughter had shrunk as

to talk; at any rate she did not talk to any satisfactory end. A squirrel hunter believed he had caught a glimpse of the stranger in the chestnut woods behind the Gillespie spring-house, but he was not a man whose oath was acceptable in t

, praising the Power in song as they rode away in the wagons laden with their camp furniture, and their children strewn over the bedding

ing, the scraping of their feet; now and then a babe, whose mother could not leave it at home, wailed pitifully or spitefully till it was coaxed or scolded still; now and then some one coughed. The air was thick; a bat scandalized the assemblage by flying in at the open door, and wavering round the tallow candles on the pulpit; one of the men beat it down with his hat, and then

he different sectarians who used the Temple. Gillespie seemed not to notice or to care

on at his presence. He glanced up at the stranger with a keen glint through his branching eyebrows, and made a gut

dist who preached, but somehow to-night he had not the fervor of his sect; his sermon was cold, and addressed itself to the faith rather than the hope of his hearers. He spoke as from the hold of an oppressive spell; at times he was perplexed, and lost his place in his exhortation. In the close heat some drowsed, and the preacher was distracted by s

th his head thrown back, and his hair tossed like a mane on his shoulders. The people stopped; some who had gone out crowded in again; no one knew quite what to do.

he largest farm in the neighborhood and he had one of the mills on the creek. In his qualit

shout from our brother here. We heard them Friday

ster was still hesitating on the pulpit stairs, and h

resent," the stranger an

eated, and he came down, and gave

eir different indifference. Dylk

said, but her fa

ongregation, now returned to their places, in the spell of a quick, short supplication. He ended

a gulf of

hed sinn

is memory in them was unerring; women who knew their Bibles by heart sighed their satisfaction in his perfectness; they did not care for the relevance or irrelevance of the passages; all was Scripture, all was the one inseparable Word of God, dreadful, blissful, divine, promising hea

a gulf of

hed sinn

brutish snort, and then his h

the women who crowded about her trying to make her say something that would feed their hunger to know more. She remained hard and cold, almost dumb; it seemed to them that she was not worthy to have had him under her father's roof. As for her father, they had no patience with him f

rowd and began to walk home through the dim, hot night, he s

, Matthew!" h

t was fried chicken the ravens brought to Elij

him partake the wonder she shared with her neighbors that the stranger had chosen David Gillespie again for his host out of th

it in the middle, like Thomas Jefferson, and do it up in a knot like a woman. Well, we can't have everything, even in a man of God; but maybe he isn't really a man of God. That would account for a good many things. But

spectability and good works they've got a right to hold their heads up with the best in this settlement. That girl has done all the work of the house since her m

ll I say is that Brother Dylks knows which sid

ight, Matthew?" his wife halted

mouth. I hate to see brethren agreeing together

take you aga

wear their hair down to their waists and come snorting and shouting in

if you go round talking that way you'll make

ree of the leading intellects like Abe and Sally on their guard. But come,

ce. Don't your own law books say a ma

him the benefit of the doubt if he's ever brought before my judgment seat. But you've got

ou do," she owned. "But don't you persec

ligion in Leatherwood already than any ten towns would know what to do with. He's

A lank hound rose from the floor, and pulled himself back from his forward-planted paws, and wh

t poor thing go, Matth

t the little chap that brou

thing and knew they were. "I saw the lik