PART II.
THE TEST OF ELDER PILL: THE COUNTRY PREACHER The lonely center of their social life, The low, square school-house, stands Upon the wind-swept plain, Hacked by thoughtless boyish hands, And gray, and worn, and warped with strife Of sleet and autumn rain.
ELDER PILL, PREACHER.
I.
Old man Bacon was pinching forked barbs on a wire fence one rainy day in July, when his neighbor Jennings came along the road on his way to town.
Jennings never went to town except when it rained too hard to work outdoors, his neighbors said; and of old man Bacon it was said he _never_ rested _nights_ nor Sundays.
Jennings pulled up.

"Good morning, neighbor Bacon." "Mornin'," rumbled the old man without looking up.
"Taking it easy, as usual, I see.

Think it's going to clear up ?" "May, an' may not.

Don't make much differunce t' me," growled Bacon, discouragingly.
"Heard about the plan for a church ?" "Naw." "Well, we're goin' to hire Elder Pill from Douglass to come over and preach every Sunday afternoon at the school-house, an' we want help t' pay him--the laborer is worthy of his hire." "Sometimes he is an' then agin he ain't.

Y' needn't look t' me f'r a dollar.