“Mebbe some o' them Injuns air named 'Gyptians',” suggested Spears, the blacksmith.
“Naw, sir,” spoke up the fiddler, who had been to Quallatown, and was the ethnographic authority of the meeting. “Tennessee Injuns be named Cher'-kee, an' Chick'saw, an' Creeks.”
There was a silence. The moonlight sifted through the dark little shanty of a shop; the fretting and foaming of a mountain stream arose from far down the steep slope, where there was a series of cascades, a fine water-power, utilized by a mill. The sudden raucous note of a night-hawk jarred upon the air, and a shadow on silent wings sped past. The road was dusty in front of the shop, and for a space there was no shade. Into the full radiance of the moonlight a rabbit bounded along, rising erect with a most human look of affright in its great shining eyes as it tremulously gazed at the motionless figures. It too was motionless for a moment. The young musician made a lunge at it with his bow; it sprang away with a violent start—its elongated grotesque shadow bounding kangaroo-like beside it—into the soft gloom of the bushes. There was no other traveller along the road, and the talk was renewed without further interruption. “Waal, sir, ef'twarn't fur the testimony o' the words he reads ez air graven on them rocks, I couldn't-git my cornsent ter b'lieve ez Moses ever war in Tennessee,” said the advanced thinker. “I ain't onder-takin' ter say what State he settled in, but I 'lowed 'twarn't hyar. It mus' hev been, though, 'count o' the scripture on them broken tables.”
“I never knowed a meetin' woke ter sech a pint o' holiness. The saints jes rampaged around till it fairly sounded like the cavortin's o' the ungodly,” a retrospective voice chimed in.
“I raised thirty-two hyme chunes,” said the musician, who had a great gift in quiring, and was the famed possessor of a robust tenor voice. “A leetle mo' gloryin' aroun' an' I'd hev kem ter the eend o' my row, an' hev hed ter begin over agin.” He spoke with acrimony, reviewing the jeopardy in which his repertoire had been placed.
“Waal,” said the blacksmith, passing his hand over his black head, as sleek and shining as a beaver's, “I'm a-goin' up ter the bald o' the mounting some day soon, ef so be I kin make out ter shoe that mare o' mine”—for the blacksmith's mount was always barefoot—“I'm afeard ter trest her unshod on them slippery slopes; I want ter read some o' them sayin's on the stone tables myself. I likes ter git a tex' or the eend o' a hyme set a-goin' in my head—seems somehow ter teach itself ter the anvil, an' then it jes says it back an' forth all day. Yestiddy I never seen its beat—'Christ—war—born—in—Bethlehem.' The anvil jes rang with that ez ef the actial metal hed the gift o' prayer an' praise.”
“Waal, sir,” exclaimed Job Grinnell, who had been having frequent colloquies aside with the companionable jug, “ye mought jes ez well save yer shoes an' let yer mare go barefoot. Thar ain't nare sign o' a word writ on them rocks.”
They all sat staring at him. Even the singing, long-drawn vibrations of the violin were still.
“By Hokey!” exclaimed the young musician, “I'll take Purdee's word ez soon ez yourn.”
The whiskey which Grinnell had drunk had rendered him more plastic still to jealousy. The day was not so long past when Purdee's oath would have been esteemed a poor dependence against the word of so zealous a brother as he—a pillar in the church, a shining light of the congregation. He noted the significant fact that it behooved him to justify himself; it irked him that this was exacted as a tribute to Purdee's newly acquired sanctity.