"I don't aim to hurt the preacher's feelings. I won't take my banjo into his church—sech doctrine as Drumright's is apt to be mighty hard on banjo strings. Don't you-all want to have a little dance after the meeting's out—on the Threshin'-floor Rock up the branch?"
The girls looked duly horrified, all but Ola Derf, who spoke up promptly,
"Yes—or come a-past our house. Pap don't mind a Sunday dance. You will come, won't you, Lance?" pleadingly.
Callista Gentry did not dance. She had always, in the nature of things, belonged to the class of young people in the mountains who might be expected at any time to "profess" and join the church. The musician laughed teasingly.
"I reckon we'd better not," he said finally. "Callista's scared. She begged me into bringing my banjo to-day (you don't any of you know the gal like I do), and now she's scared to listen to it."
Callista barely raised her eyes at this speech, and spared to make any denial.
"You-all that wants to dance on a Sunday better go 'long 9 there," she said indifferently. "It's mighty near time for preaching to begin, and you've got a right smart walk over to the Derf place." Dismissing them thus coolly from her world, she addressed herself once more to pinning a bunch of ochre and crimson azaleas into the trimming of her broad hat.
"Lance," drawled Buck Fuson, "I hear you' cuttin' timber on yo' land. Aimin' to put up a cabin—fixin' to wed?"
The newcomer shrugged his shoulders, but made no reply.
"When I heared it, I 'lowed Callista had named the day," persisted Fuson.