n and grew to young
manhood in a cabin only a stone's throw from where he and Miss Sallie,
as he always called her, went to housekeeping. As for their neighbors,
there wasn't a person in the whole countryside that didn't love Sallie
Garrett, nor one that didn't revere the kindly Apostle of the Book. So
long had Dyke Garrett traveled up and down the valley comforting the
sick, praying with the dying, funeralizing the dead.

I had heard him preach in various places through the West Virginia
hills.

"Hello, Uncle Dyke!" I called from the roadside one autumn day in 1936.

"Howdy! and welcome!" he replied cheerily, rising at once from his
straight chair and taking his place in the door. His wife stepped nimbly
to his side, for all her ninety-odd years, and echoed the husband's
greeting.

It is the way of the mountains.

I lifted the wood latch on the gate and went up the white-pebbled path.
Flower-bordered it was, with brilliant scarlet sage, purple bachelor
buttons, golden glow. There was pretty-by-night, too, though their
snow-white blossoms were closed tight in the bud for it was not yet
sundown; only in the twilight and by night did the buds bloom out.
"That's why they wear the name Pretty-by-Night," mountain folk will tell
you. There were clusters of varicolored seven sisters lifting up their
bright petals. Moss, some call it in the mountains. There were bright
cockscomb and in a swamp corner of the foreyard a great bunch of
cat-o'-nine tails straight as corn stalks.

Tall, erect stood the Good Shepherd of the Hills, fully six feet three
in his boots, his white patriarchal beard pillowed on his breast. The
blue-veined hands rested upon the back of his chair as he gazed at me
from friendly eyes. Aunt Sallie, a slight bird-like little creature,
reached scarcely to his shoulder. Her black sateen dress with fitted
basque and full skirt was set off with a white apron edged with
crocheted lace. The small knot of silver hair atop her head was held in
place with an old-fashioned tucking comb. About her stooped shoulders
was a knitted cape of black yarn.

"Take a chair," invited Uncle Dyke when I reached the porch, waving me
to a low stool. "Miss Sallie al'lus favors the rocker yonder on account
the high back eases her shoulders. She's not quite as peert as she was
back in 1867."

"It took a bit of strength to tame Dyke and I had it to do." She
addressed me rather than her husband. "He was give up to be the wildest
yo