e enough to hear
all that was said.

"Well, how do you do, Deacon Jones? I am awfully surprised. It's like
two needles meeting in a haystack for us to meet here. Isn't it now!
It's a long time since I saw you back in old Barnville, Sage county,
Indiana; but I remembered you the minute I clapped my eyes on you. I
suspect you'd like to hear from some of your old neighbors."

The speaker was still holding Uncle's hand, and Uncle was looking at him
in a bewildered manner, as if searching intensely in the picture gallery
of memory's old time faces.

"I see you can't place me, but I guess it's 'cause I was only a chunk of
a lad, but I see you often in the 'amen corner' of the Barnville Baptist
church. You see my father was killed in one of the battles before
Atlanta, and mother and me, when I was a boy, didn't have much to live
on, only our pension. So I had to work hard, and didn't git around much
for to be seen by anybody. I was converted and joined the church just
about the time you moved away. Then I went into Mr. Monroe's store and
got to be chief clerk, and then when the bank was opened at Barnville I
was made cashier, and in three or four years I was called to be cashier
in the First National here, so you see I have been more successful than
most of the poor boys about Barnville whose fathers never came back from
defending their country."

[Illustration: "I SEE YOU CAN'T PLACE ME."]

"Ah, my boy," said Uncle, "my heart always warms up for my comrades'
children. I believe I recollect you now. Wasn't you the boy what swum
out into the crick at high water, when the bridge went down while
preacher Barker's wife was crossing with her baby to bring him back from
Bethel, and towed 'em safe to shore?"

"Yes, sir. I'm the lad."

"Widow Brown's son George?"

"Yes, sir, George Brown, from Barnville, is what I am."

"Well, well, my boy, I knowed I recollected you. My memory's bad enough,
but I haint forgot ye and yer brave deed. Well, I'm glad your succeeding
so well, and I hope you haint forgot your redemption before the Cross."

"No, Deacon, I haven't, and I trust I am doing the Lord's will, as I
ought, though I know sometimes I fall short. I take part more than most
of the young people in our church, but I trust I will still be moved to
do more and more for our holy cause."

"There, there! It's proud I am to see in this great wicked city one of
Barnville's boys so true to the teachings of our Lord and Master that h