"
"Oh, thank you. How courteous you are."
"How what? I reckon you better git along without much o' that. Don't
want nobody put on a strain. Margaret, here are some folks," he
continued as his wife made her appearance. "Jest tell 'em howdy and let
'em alone."
She bowed to Tom and to Mrs. Mayfield. "And befo' you make yo'selves at
home," she said, "I hope you'll l'arn not to pay no attention to Jasper.
Lou, haven't you spoke to the folks?"
"No'm, but I can. Howdy."
CHAPTER II.
JIM, THE PREACHER.
During the rest of the day the visitors were permitted to amuse
themselves. Lou was shy, Margaret was distantly respectful and the old
man went about in leisurely attendance upon his affairs, not yet wholly
unsuspicious. A week before the arrival of the "folks from off yander,"
as the strangers were termed, there had come to Jasper's house a nephew,
Jim Starbuck, a mountain-side preacher. His air bespoke that gentleness
resultant of passion bound and gagged. At eighteen he had been known as
the terror of the creek.
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