The babies had been put to sleep; the two women and the five men--all
strong and striking types of the Southern mountaineer--were gathered for
the evening reading and prayer. Elder Justice, now nearly eighty years old,
a beautiful and venerable person, had opened the big Bible, and after
turning the leaves a moment, raised his grave, rugged face and read:
"'Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide
the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto
death.'"
He paused, and on the intense stillness which followed the ceasing of his
voice--the silence of evening in the deep mountains--there broke a long,
shrill, agonized scream.
As every one of the little circle leaped to his feet, Aunt Cornelia's eyes
sought her husband's face, and his hers. After that grinding, terrible cry,
the stillness of the night was unstirred. Pap Overholt sprang to the
hearth--where even in the midsummer months a log smoulders throughout the
day, to be brightened into a cheery blaze mornings and evenings,--seized a
brand, one or two of the others following his example, and ran through the
doorway, across the little chip-yard, making for the low-browed log barn
and the grain-room beside it.
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