"I guess it is, but that's an awful bad spot--that's right, Widow,
powwow it."

* * * * * *

For ten long days more Mrs. Tip Pulsifer chopped her own wood, Cevery
went undandled, and Earl and Pearl and Alice Eliza carried the water
that half mile from the spring. For nine long days more John
Shadrack's widow entertained the two strangers who had sought a refuge
in Happy Valley, and found it. Rare pleasure did John Shadrack's widow
have from our visit. There seemed no way she could repay us. It did
her old heart good to have someone to whom she could recount the
manifold virtues of her John--and a wonderful man John was, I judge.
Had I not come, she might have lost the Heaven-given gift of powwowing,
for there is no sickness in Happy Valley--the people die without it.
It was a pleasure to have Mark settin' around the kitchen; it was
elevatin' to hear Tip tell of his home and his wife and children; and
as for cooking, it was no pleasure to cook for just one.

"You must come agin," she cried, on the morning of that ninth day, as
she stood in the doorway of her little log-house and waved her apron at
us. "It's been a treat to have you."

So we went away, Tip and I, with Harmon Shadrack's mule and the
battered buggy. Our backs were turned to the Sunset Land. Our faces
were toward the East and the red glow of the early morning. When we
saw Thunder Knob again, Happy Valley was far below us, and only the
thin spire of smoke drifting through the pines marked the Shadrack
clearing. I kissed my hand in farewell salute to it. Perhaps John's
widow saw me--she sees so much in her dreams.