“I’ll be blessed if that little gal of Reuben Merryweather’s ain’t his religion,” commented young Adam.

“An’ he’s of the opinion that he’s going to marry her this comin’ spring,” cackled Solomon.  “Well, I could be namin’ two or three others of the same mind, if I’d take the trouble.  It’s all sensible enough to lambaste the women when they don’t pick up every virtue that we throw away, but what’s to be expected of ’em, I ax, when all the men sence Adam have been praisin’ the sober kind of gal while they was runnin’ arter the silly?  Thar’re some among ’em, I reckon, as have reasoned out to themselves that a man’s pursuit speaks louder in the years, arter all, than his praise.  Now, thar’s a fine, promisin’ farmer, like the miller gone runnin’ loose, mo’s the pity.”

“A kind heart at bottom,” said old Adam, “but he’s got a deal of larnin’ to do befo’ he’ll rest content to bide along quietly in the same world with human natur.”

“Oh, he’s like the Revercombs from the beginnin’,” protested Solomon, “slow an’ peaceable an’ silent until you rouse ’em, but when they’re once roused, they’re roused beyond God or devil.”

“Is this young Cain or Abel the head of the family?” inquired the stranger.

“Bless you, no, Mr. Jonathan, he ain’t the head—­for thar’s his brother Abner still livin’—­but, head or tail, he’s the only part that counts, when it comes to that.  Until the boy grew up an’ took hold of things, the Revercombs warn’t nothin’ mo’ than slack fisted, out-at-heel po’ white trash, as the niggers say, though the old man, Abel’s grandfather, al’ays lays claim to bein’ connected with the real Revercombs, higher up in the State—­However that may be, befo’ the war thar warn’t no place for sech as them, an’ ‘tis only since times have changed an’ the bottom begun to press up to the top that anybody has heerd of ’em.  Abel went to school somehow by hook or crook an’ got a good bit of book larnin’, they say, an’ then he came back here an’ went to turnin’ up every stone an’ stick on the place.  He ploughed an’ he sowed an’ he reaped till he’d saved up enough to buy that piece of low ground betwixt his house and the grist-mill.  Then Ebenezer Timberlake died of the dropsy an’ the first thing folks knew, Abel had moved over and turned miller.  All the grain that’s raised about here now goes to his mill, an’ they say he’ll be throwin’ out the old and puttin’ in new-fangled machinery befo’ the year is up.  He’s the foremost man in these parts, suh, unless you war to come to Jordan’s Journey to live like yo’ uncle.”

“To live like my uncle,” repeated the young man, with an ironic intonation that escaped the ears of old Adam.  “But what of the miller’s little sweetheart with the short hair and the divine smile?  Whose daughter is she?”