CHAPTER VI.
Although John Jay bore many a deep scar, both in mind and body, very little of his life had been given to sackcloth and ashes.
"Wish I could take trouble as easy as that boy," sighed Mammy.

"It slides right off'n him like watah off a duck's back." "He's like the rollin' stone that gethah's no moss," remarked Uncle Billy.

"He goes rollickin' through the days, from sunup 'twel sundown, so fast that disappointment and sorrow get rubbed off befo' they kin strike root." Despite all his troubles, if John Jay had been marking his good times with white stones, there would have been enough to build a wall all around the little cabin by the end of the summer.

There were two days especially that he remembered with deepest satisfaction: one was the Saturday when Mars' Nat took him to the circus, and the other was the Fourth of July, when all the family went to the Oak Grove barbecue.
[Illustration: Uncle Billy] But now blackberry season had begun,--a season that he hated, because Mammy expected him to help her early and late in the patch.

So many of the shining berries slipped down his throat, so many things called his attention away from the brambly bushes, that sometimes it took hours for him to fill his battered quart cup.
Usually his reward was a juicy pie, but this year Mammy changed her plan.