now hinder
the fulfillment of his dearest hope. But at last the solemn serenity of
the summer night stilled his unquiet spirit, and he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the flaming radiance in the eastern sky indicated
another sultry day; but at this early hour there was a dewy freshness
in the air, and all nature was astir and joyous. Upon the bark of a
hickory-tree a crimson-crested woodpecker was tapping for his
breakfast; under the edge of a half-decayed stump a colony of ants had
already begun the day's labor. Lark and bee were on the wing; squirrels
ran up and down the trunk of a big elm, leaping from branch to branch,
where redbird, thrush and linnet were making the woods merry with their
morning concert.

CHAPTER XII.

COMMENT AND CRITICISM

On Friday the campers returned to their homes, and Cane Ridge
neighborhood settled down to its usual routine.

"It's high time thet fo'ks should come to ther senses," said Mrs.
Rogers, as she and her husband and young Dudley sat in the yard after
supper that evening. "I don't see how you all stood it stiddy fur two
weeks et a stretch up et the 'campment. Ev'ry time I sent the niggahs
up thah with the fresh vittuls, they'd come back with ther eyes fa'rly
bulgin' out o' ther haids, an' whut little wits they hed knocked sky
west an' crooked. They brung me sich 'counts uv the goin's-on thet at
last, thinks I, I'll go an' see fur myse'f. I knowed you an' Henry
could tek keer uv yo'se'ves; but I wuz consarned 'bout Cissy, an' felt
it high time to be lookin' artah her. I soon found her, an' when I seed
she still hed her haid on her shouldahs, I wuz easier in my mind; but
I'll nevah fergit thet fust visit. The meetin' hed been goin' on six
days, an' things hed got in a good weavin' way. Thah wuz no less than
five preachahs holdin' forth to oncet in diffrunt parts uv the grounds;
so I tells Cissy thet ez thah wuz no tellin' when I'd git thah ag'in
we'd meandeh 'roun' permiscous lak an' tek in all we could. Fust, we
went to the arboh whah thah wuz a big geth'rin'--hardly even
standin'-room in the aisles--but we manidged to squedge in on a seat
close up in front. The platform wuz crammed with preachahs, an' ole
Brothah Ranson wuz holdin' fo'th et a gran' rate. His subjec' wuz
'Fleein' frum the wrath to come,' an' he wuz pow'rful. The pictures he
drawed uv the tormints uv the lost, writhin' in the midst uv the fire
an' brimstone in the bottomless pit, wuz 'nough to set a snowba