hey had made to Kentucky together, to attend a "big
meeting." The story was probably true, but uncharitable gossips shook
their heads.

It was only a few evenings after the flight of Humphreys that Jonas had
another talk with Cynthy Ann, in which he confessed that all his
supposed case about a requisition from the governor of Kentucky for
Humphreys's arrest was pure fiction.

"But, Jonas, is--is that air right? I'm afeard it a'n't right to tell an
ontruth."

"So 'ta'n't; but I only s'posed a case, you know."

"But Brother Hall said last Sunday two weeks, that anything that gin a
false impression was--was lying. Now, I don't think you meant it, but
then I thought I orto speak to you about it."

"Well, maybe you're right. I see you last summer a-puttin' up a
skeercrow to keep the poor, hungry little birds of the air from gittin'
the peas that they needed to sustain life. An' I said, What a pity that
the best woman I ever seed should tell lies to the poor little birds
that can't defend theirselves from her wicked wiles! But I see that same
day a skeercrow, a mean, holler, high-percritical purtense of a ole hat
and coat, a-hanging in Brother Goshorn's garden down to the cross-roads.
An' I wondered ef it was your Methodis' trainin' that taught you
sech-like cheatin' of the little sparrys and blackbirds."

"Yes; but Jonas--" said Cynthy, bewildered.

"And I see a few days arterwards a Englishman with a humbug-fly onto his
line, a foolin' the poor, simple-hearted little fishes into swallerln' a
book that hadn't nary sign of a ginowine bait onto it. An' I says, says
I, What a deceitful thing the human heart is!"

"Why, Jonas, you'd make a preacher!" said Cynthy Ann, touched with the
fervor of his utterance, and inly resolved never to set up another
scarecrow.

"Not much, my dear. But then, you see, I make distinctions. Ef I was to
see a wolf a-goin' to eat a lamb, what would I do? Why, I'd skeer or
fool him with the very fust thing I could find. Wouldn' you, honey?"

"In course," said Cynthy Ann.

"And so, when I seed a wolf or a tiger or a painter, like that air
'Umphreys, about to gobble up fortins, and to do some harm to Gus,
maybe, I jest rigged up a skeercrow of words, like a ole hat and coat
stuck onto a stick, and run him off. Any harm done, my dear?"

"Well, no, Jonas; I ruther 'low not."

Whether Jonas's defense was good or not, I can not say, for I do not
know. But he is entitled to the benefit of it.