"Why, it's Brother Wilkins!" she cackled. "Lord's sake, what you doin' clar up hyar!"
"Why, Sister Clark! I am glad to see you," exclaimed Jason's father, shaking one of the old woman's hands, and shouting into her other, which she cupped round her ear. "My son and I must have got off the main road five miles back. We're on our way to Milton."
Sister Clark was visibly excited. "Ye ain't going on a step tonight. I can fix a shake-down for ye. Thing like this don't happen to a lone old woman twice in a lifetime. Bring in your saddle-bags--but Lord!" she stopped aghast. "I ain't got a bit of pork in the house, nor there ain't a chicken on the place. All I got is corn-meal and molasses."
"Plenty, Sister Clark! Plenty! Get the saddle-bags, Jason, and tie the horses to graze."
They ate their supper by candle-light after their hostess had cooked the mush in a kettle hanging from the crane. Brother Wilkins had a violent choking fit during the meal and Sister Clark pounded him on the back, apologizing as she did so for her familiarity with the minister.
Jason slept profoundly on his share of the shake-down that night, and at dawn, after more mush, they were up and away.
Twice on this day, Sunday, Brother Wilkins held service in the mountains and it was nine o'clock at night when they started toward the Ohio again. It was not until they had reached the river at dawn and had roused the ferryman that the minister recovered from his Sunday abstraction.
"Did you have a pleasant trip, Jason?" he asked as they led the horses into the boat.
Brother Wilkins looked at the boy, as if he were beholding him from a new angle.
"You don't look as much like your dear mother as you did in your childhood, my boy. Sometimes--I wonder--Jason, do you think this life has been too hard on your mother?"
"Yes, sir, I do. It's hard on a boy, why shouldn't it be doubly hard on a woman?"
The minister sighed. "Your reply is hardly polite, Jason, though I suppose my question merited it." Then with sudden heat: "Never mistake this cold frankness of yours for courage, my son. It takes more courage usually to be courteous than to be impolite. Did you notice that I coughed violently yesterday evening at Sister Clark's?"