anyone jumped on these United States without a good cause," he
declared vehemently, "I'd fight for my country--" Uncle Dyke didn't
quibble his words. "That is to say if Uncle Sam would take me. Me and my
sword!" Again he faltered, adding reflectively, "But after all the Bible
is the better weapon. With it I can conquer all things."

Slowly he arose from his chair and Aunt Sallie and I did likewise.

"Come," he invited, "I want you to see for yourself where I've baptized
many a one that has come to me." He pointed to a pool in the creek
beyond the house where he had made a small dam. As we stood together it
was on the tip of my tongue to ask how many couples he had baptized, how
many he had married. Abruptly with the uncanny sense of the mountaineer
he lifted the questions out of my mind, though it could have been
because so many others had asked the same things. "I've never kept count
of the wedding ceremonies I have performed, nor of the baptisms," he
said thoughtfully. "I have always felt that if it was the Lord's work I
was doing, He would keep the count."

You didn't have to ask Uncle Dyke Garrett either which were the happiest
days of his long life. You'd know from the look he bestowed upon his
frail mate that his supreme happy hour was when he married Miss Sallie
Smith. "My wedding day," he was saying as if the question had been
asked, "that was the happiest day of my whole life. And next to that
comes the day when the Lord chose me to administer baptism to Captain
Anderson and his six boys. Such hours as these are a taste of heaven
upon earth." His voice was hushed with solemnity. His brimming eyes were
lifted to the hills. "Though it was a day of sorrow I am grateful that
it also fell to my lot to preach the funeral of my lifelong friend
Captain Anderson. Most of all though, my heart rejoiced because Captain
Anderson had become like a little child, meek and penitent, worthy to
enter the fold."

Uncle Dyke sat silent a long time. His wrinkled hands cupped bony knees.
"It brought peace to Levicy's troubled heart." His eyes grew misty with
unshed tears. "I see her now as she lay so peaceful in her shroud and on
her bosom the gold breast pin she prized so much that Captain Anderson
brought her the time he was stormbound, when he met that scalawag
brother of Jesse James. She loved posies did Levicy and every springtime
we take some to her grave, me and Miss Sallie."

At this, Miss Sallie, slipping her small hand