search of subterfuge. The dazzling glintings from the crevices of the
furnace door showed here and there gleaming teeth broadly agrin.

"Jes called me a fool in gineral," admitted the man skilled in argument.

"An' didn't she 'low ez men folks war fickle too, an' remind ye o' yer
young days whenst ye went a-courtin' hyar an' thar, an' tell over a
string o' gals' names till she sounded like an off'cer callin' the
roll?"

"Ye-es," admitted Tom, thrown off his balance by this preternatural
insight, "but all them gals war a-tryin' ter marry me--not me tryin' ter
marry them."

There was a guffaw at this modest assertion, but the disaffected
miller's tones dominated the rude merriment.

"Whenst a feller takes ter drink folks kin spell out a heap o' reasons
but the true one--an' that's 'kase he likes it. Hil'ry 'ain't never
named that 'oman's name ter me, an' I hev knowed him ez well ez ennybody
hyar. Jes t'other day whenst that boy kem, bein' foolish an' maudlin, he
seen suthin' on-common in Lee-yander's eyes--they'll be mighty oncommon
ef he keeps on readin' his tomfool book, ez he knows by heart, by the
firelight when it's dim. Ef folks air so sot agin strong drink, let 'em
drink less tharsefs. Hear Brother Peter Vickers preach agin liquor, an'
ye'd know ez all wine-bibbers air bound fur hell."

"But the Bible don't name 'whiskey' once," said the man called Tom,
in an argumentative tone. "Low wines I'll gin ye up;" he made the
discrimination in accents betokening much reasonable admission; "but
nare time does the Bible name whiskey, nor yit peach brandy, nor
apple-jack."

"Nor cider nor beer," put in an unexpected recruit from the darkness.

The miller was silent for a moment, and gave token of succumbing to this
unexpected polemic strength. Then, taking thought and courage together,
"Ye can't say the Bible ain't down on 'strong drink'?" There was no
answer from the vanquished, and he went on in the overwhelming miller's
voice: "Hil'ry hed better be purtectin' his-self from strong drink,
'stiddier the boy--by makin' him stay up thar at the mill whar he knows
thar's no drinkin' goin' on--ez will git chances at it other ways, ef
not through him, in the long life he hev got ter live. The las' time the
revenuers got Hil'ry 'twar through bein' ez drunk ez a fraish-biled
owl. It makes me powerful oneasy whenever I know ye air all drunk an'
a-gallopadin' down hyar, an' no mo' able to act reasonable in case o'
need an' pu