"Why, I seed her an' Steve Hawn an' Mavis a-goin' down the crick
jest afore dark, an' yo' mammy said as how they was aimin' to go
to yo' grandpap's."

It was his grandfather's horn, then, Jason had heard. The lad
turned to go, and the old circuit rider rose to his full height.

"Come in, boy. Yo' grandpap had better be a-thinkin' about
spreadin' the wings of his immortal sperit, stid o' shakin' them
feet o' clay o' his'n an' a-settin' a bad example to the young an'
errin'!"

"Hush up!" said the old woman. "The Bible don't say nothin' agin a
boy lookin' fer his mammy, no matter whar she is."

She spoke sharply, for Steve Hawn had called her husband out to
the gate, where the two had talked in whispers, and the old man
had refused flatly to tell her what the talk was about. But Jason
had turned without a word and was gone. Out in the darkness of the
road he stood for a moment undecided whether or not he should go
back to his lonely home, and some vague foreboding started him
swiftly on down the creek. On top of a little hill he could see
the light in his grandfather's house, and that far away he could
hear the rollicking tune of "Sourwood Mountain." The sounds of
dancing feet soon came to his ears, and from those sounds he could
tell the figures of the dance just as he could tell the gait of an
unseen horse thumping a hard dirt road. He leaned over the yard
fence--looking, listening, thinking. Through the window he could
see the fiddler with his fiddle pressed almost against his heart,
his eyes closed, his horny fingers thumping the strings like trip-