"Well,
ma," he said, with a touch of reluctance in his dragging tones, "there's a
lodge meetin' at Ebenezer Church to-night, an' I got Mintry to give me my
supper early, so's I could go. I--"
"All right, Tobe," interrupted his wife, cheerfully; "a passel of men
prancin' around with a goat oncet a month ain't much harm, I reckon. You go
'long, honey; I'll set up for you."
"Sissy is that soft an' innercent an' mild," muttered Mr. Cullum, striding
away in the gathering twilight, "that a suckin' baby could wrop her aroun'
its finger--much lessen me!"
About ten o'clock the same night Granny Carnes, peeping through a chink in
the wall beside her bed, saw a squad of men hurrying afoot down the road
from the direction of Ebenezer Church. "Them boys is up to some
devil_mint_, Uncle Dick," she remarked, placidly, to her rheumatic old
husband.
Uncle Dick laughed, a soft, toothless laugh. "I ain't begrudgin' 'em the
fun," he sighed, turning on his pillow, "but I wisht to the Lord I was
along!"
The "boys" crossed the creek below Bishop's and entered the shinn-oak
prairie on the farther side.
"Nance ast mighty particular about the lodge meetin'," observed Newt Pinson
to Mr.
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