ith Alexander. Stranger, ye
don't know nothin' about this neck o' the woods a-tall!"

Parson Acup, so called for the funereal gravity of his bearing and
expression, and Brent the timber-buyer, stood looking down from
beetling cliffs rigidly bestowed with collossal and dripping icicles.
To their ears came a babel of shouts, the grating of trees, long
sleet-bound but stirring now to the thaw--the roar of blasting powder
and the rending of solid rock.

Brent laughed. "Now, that you've fathomed the density of my
ignorance," he suggested, "proceed to enlighten me. Upon what does
this Alexander rest his fame? What character of man is he?"

"Wa'al, stranger, I've done always held ther notion thet we folks up
hyar in these benighted hills of old Kaintuck, war erbout the
ign'rantest human mortals God ever suffered ter live--but even us knows
erbout Alexander. Fust place he hain't no man at all. He's a
gal--leastwise, Alexander was borned female but she's done lived a plum
he-life, ever since."

"A woman--but the name----"

"Oh, pshaw! Thar hain't nuthin' jedgmatic in a name. Old man McGivins
he jest disgusts gals and so he up and named his fust born Alexander
an' he's done reared her accordin'."

Brent arched his brows as his informant continued, gathering headway in
the interest of his narrative. "Old man McGivins he's done read a
lavish heap of books an' he talks a passel of printed wisdom. He
'lowed thet Alexander wa'nt no common man's name but thet hit signified
a hell-bustin' survigrous feller. By his tellin', ther fust Alexander
whaled blazes outen all creation an' then sot down an' cried like a
baby because ther job he'd done went an' petered out on him. Ter me,
thet norration savers right strong of a damn lie."

Brent nodded as he smilingly replied, "I've read of that first
Alexander, but he's been dead a good many centuries."

"Long enough ter leave him lay an' ferget about him, I reckon," drily
observed the parson. "Anyhow atter a spell Old Man McGivins had
another bornin' at his dwellin-house an' thet time hit proved out to be
a boy. His woman sought ter rechristen ther gal Lizzie or Lake Erie or
somethin' else befittin petticoats. She 'lowed thet no godly man
wouldn't hardly seek a woman in wedlock, ner crave fer her to be ther
mother of his children with a name hung on her like Alexander Macedonia
McGivins."

Brent's eye twinkled as he watched the unbending gravity of the other's
face and