and he
felt the freedom of the morning beginning to act upon his well-trained
blood, the mechanical manner of the old man's mind gave place to a
mild exuberance. A weight seemed to be lifting from it ounce by ounce
as the fence panels, the weedy corners, the persimmon sprouts and
sassafras bushes crept away behind him, so that by the time a mile lay
between him and the life partner of his joys and sorrows he was in a
reasonably contented frame of mind, and still improving.

It was a queer figure that crept along the road that cheery May
morning. It was tall and gaunt, and had been for thirty years or more.
The long head, bald on top, covered behind with iron-gray hair, and in
front with a short tangled growth that curled and kinked in every
direction, was surmounted by an old-fashioned stove-pipe hat, worn and
stained, but eminently impressive. An old-fashioned Henry Clay cloth
coat, stained and threadbare, divided itself impartially over the
donkey's back and dangled on his sides. This was all that remained of
the elder's wedding suit of forty years ago. Only constant care, and
use of late years limited to extra occasions, had preserved it so
long. The trousers had soon parted company with their friends. The
substitutes were red jeans, which, while they did not well match his
court costume, were better able to withstand the old man's abuse, for
if, in addition to his frequent religious excursions astride his
beast, there ever was a man who was fond of sitting down with his feet
higher than his head, it was this selfsame Elder Brown.

The morning expanded, and the old man expanded with it; for while a
vigorous leader in his church, the elder at home was, it must be
admitted, an uncomplaining slave. To the intense astonishment of the
beast he rode, there came new vigor into the whacks which fell upon
his flanks; and the beast allowed astonishment to surprise him into
real life and decided motion. Somewhere in the elder's expanding soul
a tune had begun to ring. Possibly he took up the far, faint tune that
came from the straggling gang of negroes away off in the field, as
they slowly chopped amid the threadlike rows of cotton plants which
lined the level ground, for the melody he hummed softly and then sang
strongly, in the quavering, catchy tones of a good old country
churchman, was "I'm glad salvation's free."

It was during the singing of this hymn that Elder Brown's regular
motion-inspiring strokes were for the fi