to heal? The mumps hadn't oughter hender a marriage from bein' solemnated, no more than they had oughter hender a funeral, especially when they would leave of theirselves if there was faith enough. Oh, the Lord was good! The Lord be blessed!

Mrs. Stamper was moved to give a sample of the power of prayer, and Mrs. Flieger chimed in with another instance on the same topic; the elderly saint in the black calico sunbonnet testified to the healing by faith of a boil on the back of her husband's neck; a graphic illustration of Marky's swallowing a marble was contributed by Rose Rooney; and a fervid testimonial service threatened the festivities of the wedding. At the outset of these pious extravagances the bridegroom slipped away, groaning, to his couch; the discovery of his exit took off the keen edge from the testimonies, and whiffs of fried chicken and roast pork from the kitchen brought them speedily to a close.

The afternoon passed away in feasting; thrice in succession was the long table

filled and filled again, and there was a surfeit of eating and drinking. The bridegroom, waited upon solicitously by his mother-in-law, gazed with momentary animation into a plate heaped with the breast of chicken, mashed potato, squash, and gravy, only to find that with the most strenuous exertion he might open his mouth the eighth of an inch and no more. The good things had vanished, as they have a way of doing in this life, before Job was able once more to exercise a proper control over his jaws.

The young couple presently set up housekeeping in their dug-out. The day after her establishment in her new home, several reliable witnesses attested to having seen the bride picking potatoes out in the field while her lord and master forked them. Mrs. Art Post, too, it was said, had a liking for the occupation. Picking potatoes is no uncommon industry with the women and children of the rain-belt, and brides, for the sake of being near their husbands, as well as to ward off incipient attacks of homesickness, take to it with avidity.

The first Sabbath after the wedding, a new member was received into the fold. Whatever may have been her change of heart, a striking metamorphosis in her external appearance marked Mrs. Postlethwaite's entrance into the church. Her frizzes were laid low, her ribbons discarded, her stays abolished; her full sleeves, the pride of her simple heart, she had cut down and fitted close to her plump arms. To quote Polly Bunt, the latter resembled "stuffed bolognys, an' looked jest awful." One other step sufficed to sunder the ties between Betty and her former playmates; this was accomplished on the day that Betty seated herself by her husband's side in the Amen Corner, thus tacitly assuming the sublimities of sanctification.

"She's awful changed," complained Polly Bunt. "She don't go to dances no more, an' she don't go a-visitin', an' she don't have nothin' to do with the young folks. She's growed old all to onc't. If that's the way folks act when they git religion, I ain't never goin' to git none, so there!"

IX

THE COME-OUTERS

It was evening meeting, and the people of Windy Creek were flocking into the school-house.

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"Let me make you acquainted with a brother in the faith!" said Mr. Flieger, presenting a stranger in black to Ruth Wood's father. Brother Hawkey, from Denver; he's agoin' to preach to us to-night." He added, with a heartfelt chuckle, "This is my kind, now."

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And, indeed, the good man was gaining quite a reputation for changing religions; it had been said of him that he was like a tumble-weed in a blizzard-you couldn't tell where he was at."

The Evening Light bestowed a look of severe scrutiny upon the elderly farmer. "Have you got salvation? Have you found the Light?"

Upon the other's mild response that he had been a church member for upwards of fifty years, the brother from Denver demanded, with asperity, "The church of the living God?" and squared himself for a controversy that was nipped in the bud by the opportune arrival of Brother Mellon, the regular preaching elder of the district. The two brothers in the faith flew to each other's arms and saluted with a mighty kiss.

Em Post came in, hugging a heavy baby, while the superseded toddler waddled by her side, and her husband came after, empty-handed and careless. Mrs. Flieger and Rose Rooney rushed to meet her with a loud whispering and buzzing. "Let up, ma," she was heard to say. Her soft tones disarmed the words of their rudeness. "I ain't none of yer old Come-outers!"

Few outsiders disturbed the sanctity of the meeting. There was a scarcity of young people. But the Bittern sisters were present, for they went to everything. They sat alone; their father was not with them, nor was any rustic swain in their Estelle had decked her dress

company.