"I'll put up my horse first," said Gideon gently.

"So do," responded the widow briefly.

Gideon led his horse across the inclosure, stumbling over the heaps
of rubbish, dried chips, and weather-beaten shavings with which it
was strewn, until he reached the unfinished barn, where he
temporarily bestowed his beast. Then taking a rusty axe, by the
faint light of the stars, he attacked one of the fallen trees with
such energy that at the end of ten minutes he reappeared at the
door with an armful of cut boughs and chips, which he quietly
deposited behind the stove. Observing that he was still standing
as if looking for something, the widow lifted her eyes and said,
"Ef it's the bucket, I reckon ye'll find it at the spring, where
one of them foolish Filgee boys left it. I've been that tuckered
out sens sundown, I ain't had the ambition to go and tote it back."
Without a word Gideon repaired to the spring, filled the missing
bucket, replaced the hoop on the loosened staves of another he
found lying useless beside it, and again returned to the house.
The widow once more pointed to the chair, and Gideon sat down.
"It's quite a spell sens you wos here," said the Widow Hiler,
returning her foot to the cradle-rocker; "not sens yer was
ordained. Be'n practicin', I reckon, at the meetin'."

A slight color came into his cheek. "My place is not there, Sister
Hiler," he said gently; "it's for those with the gift o' tongues.
I go forth only a common laborer in the vineyard." He stopped and
hesitated; he might have said more, but the widow, who was familiar
with that kind of humility as the ordinary perfunctory expression