On a Sunday morning, Lyman and Warren hired a light spring wagon and drove out through the green and romantic country that lay stretched and tumbled along the Mt. Zion road. The great clover-fields, now red with bloom, looked like a mighty spreading of strawberry-land ready for the pickers; and a red bird, arising from the ground, might have been a bloom of a berry suddenly endowed with wings. The air breathed delicious laziness, and when the horse stopped midway and knee-deep in a rivulet, he stood with his mouth in the water pretending to swallow, stealing the enjoyment of the cool current against his legs. The two men enjoyed the old rascal's trick, agreeing to let him stand there as long as he practiced the duplicity of keeping his mouth in the stream. Minnows nibbled at his lips, and he lifted his head, but observing the men, who leaned out to look at him, he again immersed his mouth and pretended to swallow. At last, as if ashamed of himself, he pulled out, trotting briskly in the sun, but hanging back in the shade. Down in the low places bright-winged flies had come in swarms to hum their tunes, and on the high ridges where the thin grass was wilting, the gaunt rabbit sat in the sun. Driving along the low, smooth and sandy margin of a stream, where the thick bushes bore a bloom that looked like a long caterpillar, they reached an iron spring, deep red, a running wound on the face of the earth. They came to an old water mill, long ago fallen into decay and halted to listen to the water pouring over the ruined dam. They turned into a broader road, and now saw numerous vehicles, bright with calico and dun with home-spun, all moving in one direction, toward the old Mt. Zion meeting house on a hill. To view one of those places of worship is to gaze upon religious history. We look at the great trees, the rocks worn smooth, the house squatting with age, and we no longer regard our country as new. In Mt. Zion there were loop-holes where men had stood to shoot Indians, while their wives were muttering a prayer. The old oak benches, made of split slabs, were almost as hard as iron. A slab, called the altar, but known as the mourners' bench, had caught the tears of many an innocent maiden and roistering youth.
Lyman unhitched the horse and led him down a glade to feed him in the cool shadow of a chestnut tree, and while he was spreading the oats Warren came running down to him.
"Lyman, she's here," he said. "It's a fact and I'll swear it. Yes, sir, she's here, and I was never more surprised in my life."
"I am not surprised," Lyman replied. "I expected her."
"The deuce you did! Then you know her."
"Know her. Of course I do."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you? What do you mean?"
"Why, I mean that you ought to have told me. What's her name?"
"Look here, have you gone crazy?"