That's the sort of a preacher the folks likes to
hear, fur they've got confidence in his jedgment."
The log meeting-house was on a hill in the midst of a walnut grove. Its
roof was green with moss and its sides gray and yellow. Many a storm
had swept over this old pile of wood. In it the ordinance of secession
had been read. Knives flashed, pistols barked, and blood was poured out
upon the floor. Old Oliver's horses ate their oats at the marble altar
of an ancient cathedral; and within these log walls, and at this long
slab, this mourners' bench, tear-stained by a generation long since in
the grave, the horses of the guerrillas ate their corn. Descendants of
the same men, carrying on what might have seemed a continuation of the
same family quarrel, first one side and then another occupied Dry Fork
as a fort; and when the rain was pouring as if to wash away the blood,
Buell slept on a bench in this old house, and two days later Bragg's
orders were issued from its pulpit.
Numerous horses were tied about and the mule colt was blowing his treble
horn.
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