Trace stock. They had it up one
side and down the other; Brother Japhe tryin' to tell Bledsoe that his
piebald was about the no-accountest horse in the valley, and Jim takin'
it all by contraries and gettin' more and more p'intedly anxious to
trade."

"Well?" said Tom, enjoying his return to nature like any creature freed
of the urban cage.

"They came to the trade, after a tolerable spell of it," Caleb went on,
"and the last thing I heard Japhe say was, 'now you recollect, Brother
Bledsoe, I done told you that there piebald's no account on the face of
the earth--a-lovin' of my neighbor like I promise' Brother Silas I
would.'"

Tom laughed again. There was the smell of the good red soil in the
little story, a whiff of the home earth reminiscent and heartening. But
the under-thought laid hold on Japheth and his change of heart.

"Japhe was about the last man in Paradise, always excepting Major
Dabney," he said half-musingly. "Haven't you often wondered what sort of
a maggot it is that gets into the human brain to give it the
superstitious twist?"

Caleb's gentle frown was the upcast of paternal bewilderment, partly
prideful, partly disconcerting. He was not yet fully acquainted with
this young giant with the frank face, the sober gray eyes, and the
conscious grasp of himself. More than once since their meeting at the
steps of the Pullman car he had felt obliged to reassure himself by
saying, "This is Tom; this is my son." There were so many and such
marked changes: the quick, curt speech, caught in the Northland; the
nervous, sure-footed stride, and the athletic swing of the shoulders;
the easy manner and confident air, not of college-boy conceit, but of
the assurance of young manhood; and, lastly, this blunt right-about-face
in matters of religion. Caleb was not quite sure that this latter change
was entirely welcome.

"Whereabouts did ye learn to call it superstition, son? Not at your
mammy's knee, leastwise," he said, in sober deprecation.

Tom shook his head. "No; and not altogether at yours. But I guess I've
worked around to your point of view, after so long a time."

"It's your mammy's faith, all the same, Buddy," said the father gravely.
"Let's not belittle it any more'n we can help."

"I don't belittle it," was the quick response. "In some of its phases it
is grand--magnificent. We can't always be prying into the cause; the
effect is what counts. And there is no denying that the fairy tale
which we ca