piness of mind which was the characteristic
of his idea of intoxication.

He waited for it, all ready to welcome it. If it had come into his
cabin, all dressed up like some image of temptation or allurement, he
would not have been in the least surprised. He rather expected a real
and tangible manifestation, a vision of delight, clothed in some fair
figure. He sat there, rigidly, watching for the least symptom of unholy
pleasure. He had no clock by which to tell the time, and his watch was
thoroughly unreliable.

Again and again he poked up the fire. He was surprised, at last, to
hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of a wild turkey for the first false
dawn. By and by he became conscious of the light which was crowding the
fire flare into a subordinate place.

Day had arrived, and as yet, the delight which everybody said was in
moonshine whiskey had failed to touch him. However, he knew that he was
not properly in a receptive mood for happiness. His soul was still
stubborn against the allurements of sin. He stirred from his chair,
fried a rabbit in a pan, and baked a batch of hot-bread in a dutch oven,
brewing strong coffee and bringing out the jug of sorghum molasses.

He ate breakfast. He was conscious of a certain rigidity of action, a
certain precision of motion, ascribing them to the stern determination
which he had that when he should at last discover the whiskey-happiness
in his soul, he would let go with a whoop.

"Some hit makes happy, and some hit makes fightin' mad!" Rasba suddenly
thought, with much concern, "S'posen hit'd make me fightin' mad?"

A fluttering trepidation clutched his heart. The bells ringing in his
ears fairly clanged the alarm. He hadn't looked for anything else but
joy from being drunk, and now suppose he should be stricken with a mad
desire to fight--to kill someone!

No deadlier fear ever clutched a man's heart than the one that seized
Elijah Rasba. Suppose that when the deferred hilarity arrived, he was
made fighting drunk instead of joyous? The thought seized his soul and
he looked about himself wondering how he could chain his hands and save
his soul from murder, violence, fighting, and similar crimes! No
feasible way appeared to his frightened mind.

He dropped on his knees and began to pray for happiness, instead of for
violence, when the drink that he had had should seize him in its
embrace. He prayed with a voice that roared like thunder and which made
the charcoal fall fro