he is back and hollerin' at the fence. 'Come out here,
preacher--I've got her,' He had a woman in his buggy that Blaylock had
never put eyes on in all his born days. 'Wouldn't none o' them I sent ye
to have ye?' the preacher asked Zack in a kind of whisper, when he
looked at that thar snaggle-toothed, cross-eyed somebody that
Shalliday'd fetched back. 'I reckon they would,' says Zack. 'I reckon
any or all of 'em would 'a' had me,' he says. 'I had only named it to
three o' the four, and I hadn't closed up with none o' them, becaze I
wasn't quite satisfied in my mind about the butter makin'. And as I was
goin' along the road toward the last name you give me, I come up with
this here woman. She was packin' truck down to the store for to trade
it. I offered her a lift and she rid with me a spell. I chanced to tell
her of what I was out after, and she let on that she was a widder, and
showed me the butter she had--hit was all made off of one cow, and the
calf is three months old. I wasn't a-goin' to take nobody's word in such
a matter, and hauled her on down to the store and seed the storekeeper
pay her extry for that thar butter--and here we air. Tie the knot,
preacher; yer dollar is ready for ye, and we must be gittin' along
home--it's 'most milkin' time,' The preacher he tied the knot, and
Shalliday and the new Miz. Shalliday they got along home." The old man
chuckled as he had at the beginning of this tale.

"Well, that was business," agreed Shade impatiently. "When are you goin'
to start for Big Unaka?"

The old man rolled his great head between his shoulders.

"Ye-ah," he assented; "business. But it was bad business for Zack
Shalliday. That thar woman never made a lick of that butter she was a
packin' to the settlement to trade for her sister that was one o' them
widders the preacher had give him the name of. Seems Shalliday's woman
had jest come in a-visitin' from over on Big Smoky, and she turned out
to be the laziest, no-accountest critter on the Unakas. She didn't know
which end of a churn-dasher was made for use. Aw--law--huh!
Business--there's two kinds of business; but that was a bad business for
Zack Shalliday. I reckon I'll go up on Unaka to-morrow, if Mavity can
run the house without me."

CHAPTER XIV

WEDDING BELLS

A vine on Mavity Bence's porch turned to blood crimson. Its leaves
parted from the stem in the gay Autumn wind, and sifted lightly down to
join the painted foliage of the two little ma