T was the second Sunday in July, and a bright, clear day. In that mountainous region the early mornings of dry summer days are delightfully cool and balmy. Abner Daniel was in his room making preparations to go to meeting at Rock Crest Church. He had put on one of his best white shirts, black silk necktie, doeskin trousers, flowered waistcoat, and long frock-coat, and was proceeding to black his shoes. Into an old pie-pan he raked from the back of the fireplace a quantity of soot and added to it a little water and a spoonful of sorghum molasses from a jug under his bed, stirring the mixture into a paste. This he applied to his shoes with a blacking-brush, rubbing vigorously until quite a decent gloss appeared. It was a thing poverty had taught him just after the war, and to which he still resorted when he forgot to buy blacking.
On his way to church, as he was crossing a broom-sedge field and steering for the wood ahead of him, through which a path made a short cut to Rock Crest Church, he overtook Pole Baker swinging along in his shirt-sleeves and big hat.
“Well, I 'll be bungfuzzled,” Abner exclaimed, “ef you hain't got on a clean shirt! Church?”
“Yes, I 'lowed I would, Uncle Ab. I couldn't stay away. I told Sally it ud be the biggest fun on earth. She's a-comin' on as soon as she gits the childern ready. She's excited, too, an' wants to see how it 'll come out. She's as big a believer in you as I am, mighty nigh, an' she 'lowed, she did, that she'd bet you'd take hair an' hide off'n that gang 'fore they got good started.”
Abner raised his shaggy eyebrows. If this was one of Pole's jokes it failed in the directness that usually characterized the jests of the ex-moonshiner.
“I wonder what yo' re a-drivin' at, you blamed fool,” he said, smiling in a puzzled fashion.
Pole was walking in front, and suddenly wheeled about. He took off his hat, and, wiping the perspiration from his high brow with his forefinger, he cracked it into the broom-sedge like a whip.
“Looky' heer, Uncle Ab,” he laughed, “what you givin' me?”
“I was jest tryin' to find out what you was a-givin' me,” retorted the rural philosopher, a dry note of rising curiosity dominating his voice.
They had reached a rail fence which separated the field from the wood, and they climbed over it and stood in the shade of the trees. Pole stared at the old man incredulously. “By hunkley, Uncle Ab, you don't mean to tell me you don't know what that passle o' hill-Billies is a-goin' to do with you this mornin' at meetin'?”