o detain me over
another day, the minister conducted me some distance in person, passing
me on with ample directions to another exhorter, who was located for
that night at the house of a miller who kept a ferocious dog. I came
first to the pond and then to the mill, and got into the house without
encountering the dog. Aware of the necessity of arriving before bedtime,
I had made such speed as to find the miller's family still lingering
about the fireplace with preacher number two seated in the lay circle.
That night I slept with the parson, who sat up in bed in the morning,
and after disencumbering himself of a striped extinguisher nightcap,
electrified the other sleepers by announcing that this was the first
time he had ever slept with a Yankee. After breakfast the parson, armed
with staff and scrip, signified his purpose to walk with me during the
day, as it was no longer dangerous to move by daylight. We must have
been traveling the regular Baptist road, for we lodged that night at the
house of another lay brother. The minister continued with me a few miles
in the morning, intending to put me in the company of a man who was
going toward Casher's Valley on a hunting expedition. When we reached
his house, however, the hunter had gone; so, after parting with my
guide, I set forward through the woods, following the tracks of the
hunter's horse. The shoe-prints were sometimes plainly impressed in the
snow, and again for long distances over dry leaves and bare ground but
an occasional trace could be found. It was past noon when I arrived at
the house where the hunters were assembled. Quite a number of men were
gathered in and about the porch, just returned from the chase. Blinded
by the snow over which I had been walking in the glare of the sun, I
blundered up the steps, inquiring without much tact for the rider who
had preceded me, and was no little alarmed at receiving a rude and gruff
reception. I continued in suspense for some time, until my man found an
opportunity to inform me that there were suspicious persons present,
thus accounting for his unexpected manner. The explanation was made at a
combination meal, serving for both dinner and supper, and consisting
exclusively of beans. I set out at twilight to make a walk of thirteen
miles to the house of our old friend Esquire Hooper. Eager for the
cordial welcome which I knew awaited me, and nerved by the frosty air, I
sped over the level wood road, much of the way runnin