you uns I
remember well ez ye war a-settin' on the mourner's bench." For there
had been a great religious revival the previous year and many had been
pricked in conscience. "Ye ain't so tuk up now in contemplatin' the
goodness o' God an' yer sins agin same," he pursued caustically.

Brent retorted with obvious acrimony. "I don't see no 'casion ter doubt
the goodness o' God--I never war so ongrateful nohow as that comes to."
He resented being thus publicly reproached, as if he were individually
responsible for the iniquity of the bran dance--the scape-goat for the
sins of all this merry company. Many of the whilom dancers had pressed
forward, crowding up behind the old mountaineer and facing the flushed
Brent and the flowerlike Valeria, the faint green leaves of her muslin
dress fluttering about her as her skirts swayed in the wind.

"Ye ain't so powerful afeard of the devil _now_ ez ye uster was on the
mourner's bench," the old man argued.

"I never war so mighty afeard of the devil," the goaded Brent broke
forth angrily, for the crowd was laughing in great relish of his
predicament--they, who had shared all the enormity of "shaking a foot"
on this festive day. Brent flinched from the obvious injustice of their
ridicule. He felt an eager impulse for reprisal. "I know ez sech dancin'
ez I hev done ain't no sin," he blustered. "I ain't afeared o' the devil
fur sech ez that. I wouldn't be skeered a mite ef he war ter--ter--ter
speak right out now agin it, an' I'll be bound ez all o' you uns would.
I--I--look yander--_look!_"

He had thrown himself into a posture of amazed intentness and was
pointing upward at the overhanging boughs of a tree above their heads.
A squirrel was poised thereon, gazing down motionless. Then, suddenly--a
frightful thing happened. The creature seemed to speak. A strange
falsetto voice, such as might befit so eerie a chance, sounded on
the air--loud, distinct, heard far up the slope, and electrifying the
assemblage near at hand that was gathering about the stand and awaiting
the political candidates.

"Quit yer foolin'--quit yer fooling" the strange voice iterated. "I'll
larn ye ter be afeared o' the devil. Long legs now is special grace."

So wild a cry broke from the startled group below the tree that the
squirrel, with a sudden, alert, about-face movement, turned and swiftly
ran along the bough and up the bole. It paused once and looked back
to cry out again in distinct iteration, "Quit y