want me back to the farm."

Uncle Ambrose leaned on his table, facing the young man so squarely that
the boy was obliged to raise his bloodshot blue eyes to his.

"Nobody don't kire fer you in Pennyroyal? That ain't the important
thing; don't you kire fer somebody, Sam? That's what keeps a man
straight. If we was stone images now set up in a desert, why, we might
hope to have people come a-worshippin' of us, but bein's as we are just
ordinary--sometimes very ordinary--human bein's, seems like we might do
the lovin' end ourselves." The older man searched the face opposite him
keenly. "How old are you?" he inquired suddenly.

"'Bout twenty," was the answer. "I wasn't more'n eight or ten when
Farmer Tarwater brought me to his farm and give me my schoolin' till I
was a good sized boy. He was more of a friend to me than anybody's ever
been."

Uncle Ambrose waved the last statement aside. "Mebbe he was your friend
and mebbe he wasn't, but the thing that worries me about you most, Sam,
ain't last night's scrape nor the rest of the foolishnesses you been
gettin' into in this village. It's you settin' right here at my table
and you more'n twenty, been raised in Kentucky and got eyes in your
head, and yet tellin' me you don't _kire_ fer nobody! The Widow Tarwater
told me I could bring you back to the farm this evenin' ef you was
feelin' yourself, but mebbe you'd better stay along with me 'till I kin
kind of find something to prop up under you."

But the boy's tanned face grew redder than usual. "I didn't say I didn't
kire fer no one; I said there was no one kired fer me. There's a
girl----"

Now the tall man's hand struck the breakfast table until the plates on
it fairly danced.

"Glory, I knowed you'd more sense'n you showed!" he announced
triumphantly, and coming around to refill his visitor's plate put his
arm affectionately around his shoulder. "You got the best thing on
earth, boy, to keep you goin'; you got to learn a girl to love you."
Uncle Ambrose's emotional old face quivered with the glory of the chase.
"Course your girl don't kire fer you now, you ain't worth it, but you
up and show her what lovin' her has done fer you. And mebbe I'll keep
right 'longside of you, Sam."

This confidence was by no means finished, but at this moment a thin,
brown shadow, faithful as the rising and setting of the sun, appearing
at the dining-room window, Uncle Ambrose's further remarks were choked
off. Returning from the kitche