"You are back early from church," he said.

"Yes. One service is good enough for me when thar ain't no special
preacher," she returned, "so I jest sez to Silas, 'as I ain't here to
listen to the sisters cackle ye kin put to the buckboard and drive me
home ez soon ez you please.'"

"And so his name is Silas," suggested Mr. Hamlin cheerfully.

"Go 'long with you, Mr. Hamlin, and don't pester," she returned, with
heifer-like playfulness. "Well, Silas put to, and when we rose the hill
here I saw your straw hat passin' in the gulch, and sez to Silas, sez I,
'Ye kin pull up here, for over yar is our new boarder, Jack Hamlin, and
I'm goin' to talk with him.' 'All right,' sez he, 'I'd sooner trust
ye with that gay young gambolier every day of the week than with them
saints down thar on Sunday. He deals ez straight ez he shoots, and is
about as nigh onto a gentleman as they make 'em.'"

For one moment or two Miss Bird only saw Jack's long lashes. When his
eyes once more lifted they were shining. "And what did you say?" he
said, with a short laugh.

"I told him he needn't be Christopher Columbus to have discovered that."
She turned with a laugh toward Jack, to be met by the word "shake," and
an outstretched thin white hand which grasped her large red one with a
frank, fraternal pressure.

"I didn't come to tell ye that," remarked Miss Bird as she sat down on a
boulder, took off her yellow hat, and restacked her tawny mane under
it, "but this: I reckoned I went to Sunday meetin' as I ought ter. I
kalkilated to hear considerable about 'Faith' and 'Works,' and sich,
but I didn't reckon to hear all about you from the Lord's Prayer to the
Doxology. You were in the special prayers ez a warnin', in the sermon
ez a text; they picked out hymns to fit ye! And always a drefful example
and a visitation. And the rest o' the tune it was all gabble, gabble by
the brothers and sisters about you. I reckon, Mr. Hamlin, that they know
everything you ever did since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, and a
good deal more than you ever thought of doin'. The women is all dead set
on convertin' ye and savin' ye by their own precious selves, and the men
is ekally dead set on gettin' rid o' ye on that account."

"And what did Seth and Mrs. Rivers say?" asked Hamlin composedly, but
with kindling eyes.

"They stuck up for ye ez far ez they could. But ye see the parson
hez got a holt upon Seth, havin' caught him kissin' a convert at camp
meeting;