The Leatherwood God

f his child groveling at the feet of that blasphemous impostor and adoring him as her God pitilessly realized itself to him as a thing shameful past experience and beyond credence, and yet as

his strong unselfish will; now he had seen his will without power upon the one who was dearest, and whom he seemed t

an a few minutes, but she had gone, he did not know where, without waiting to speak with him after the threats and defiances which they had slept upon.

and said, "She ain't here, David." Nancy had cleared her breakfast away and w

't know but what she'd come over to

too. But what bri

breakfast. We had high words las

higher words, yet, David

t know what to

he pain she was willing he should feel from it, but for the pain he was feeling before. "I k

she was like she had always been, as biddable as a child, and meek an

r on us than it is on you. It came on me like a thief in the night and stole away my sense. It gave Joseph Dylks his chance over me; if it had been sooner or lat

the real matter of his errand, far from the question of his daughter'

different because we don't know them. Yes," she returned to his question with a sigh, "Joey told me something about it-enough about it. I suppose it isn't right to let him be a spy on his father; but I have to. If I didn

fairly turned me sick. And my own daughter groveling on her knees with the worst! If I didn't know Dylks for the thing he is, without an idea beyond victuals an

ll the goings on, just like I would myself. He always says he's glad I wasn't there, and he pities the poor fool women more than he despises his father. Or I ortn'

now how you can bear up the way you do. I

n bear what I've got to because the feeling is all

't say tha

I think. I'm not afraid any more; I ha

rstand it. We've always thought alike and believed alike, and now to see her gone crazy after a thief and

ause she added, "You're worse than wha

ment like this where we were all brethren and dwelt together in unity, no matter whether we believed in dipping or sprinkling? We loved one another-in the Scripture sense-and now look! Families broken up, brothers not speaking, wives and husbands parting, parents cursing the day their children were

, and said he should never see corruption, and should never die, and told his uncle he couldn't shoot him. Them that was there say the old ma

ooked sadly at her. "I don't belie

t Joseph, may be, but Saint Paul Enraghty is a bigger rascal or a bigger fool than he is. Some say tha

preaches Dylks! First he wouldn't hardly go into the same house, and then he wouldn't leave it till he could come with Dylks. I don't know how they do it! Sometimes I think the

ut; and I hear tell he don't think there's going to be any raisin' of the body, or any Last Day, or any Hell; but he keeps it to himself unless folks pester him. I was afraid once to have Joey talk with him, before the plow went over me. But now I let Joey go to him all he wa

tle boy's age, I wouldn't feel as if I

told me what the duty of a woman was that found out she had two husbands. Do

ancy," David an

with the Lord in prayer? Perh

e I saw them fools wallowing round at Dylks's fee

f, and you don't believe the Lord can give y

hild I could whip it out of her, but when your

work. "He's appointed it for to-night," Gillespie said, "but I don't believe but what he'll put it off, if the coast ain't cle

emphatic word in their talk. "What I wonder is that a man like you, David, could care what people in such a place as this would say if they found out that I was livin' with L

I'm standing here I don't care for that any more. If you

to be the Apostle Paul because Joseph Dylks called him it, and gets up in the Temple where he used to preach Christ Jesus and Him crucified, and tells the people to behold their God in Joseph Dylks! There's just one excuse for him: he's crazy. If he ain't he's the wickedest man in Leatherwood, the wickedest man

the door. "Are you goi

tell you, whether

but ended with his name t

was not to be seen, and she went back to her ironing, and ironed more swiftly than before, moving her lips in a sort of wrathful revery. From time to time she changed her iron for one at the hearth, which she touched with her wetted finger to test its heat, and returned to her table with an unconscious smile of s