Leander found a warm welcome at home. His violin had been broken in the mêlée, and the miller, though ardently urged, never could remember the spot where he had hidden the book—such havoc had the confusion of that momentous night wrought in his mental processes. Therefore, unhampered by music or literature, Leander addressed himself to the plough-handles, and together that season he and “Neighbor” made the best crop of their lives.
Laurelia sighed for the violin and Leander's music, though, as she always made haste to say, some pious people misdoubted whether it were not a sinful pastime. On such occasions it went hard with Leander not to divulge his late experiences and the connection of the pious Uncle Nehemiah therewith. But he always remembered in time Laurelia's disability to receive confidences, being a woman, and consequently unable to keep a secret, and he desisted.
One day, however, when he and Ty Sudley, ploughing the corn, now knee-high, were pausing to rest in the turn-row, a few furrows apart, in an ebullition of filial feeling he told all that had befallen him in his absence. Ty Sudley, divided between wrath toward Nehemiah and quaking anxiety for the dangers that Leander had been constrained to run—ex post facto tremors, but none the less acute—felt moved now and then to complacence in his prodigy.
“So 'twar you-uns ez war smart enough ter slam the furnace door an' throw the whole place inter darkness! That saved them moonshiners and raiders from killin' each other. It saved a deal o' bloodshed—ez sure ez shootin\ 'Twar mighty smart in ye. But”—suddenly bethinking himself of sundry unfilial gibes at Uncle Nehemiah and the facetious account of his plight—“Lee-yander, ye mustn't be so turr'ble bad, sonny; ye mustn't be so turr'ble bad.”
“Naw, ma'am, Neighbor, I won't,” Leander protested.
And he went on following the plough down the furrow and singing loud and clear.