I thought of it when you stood here a bit ago and had to stoop. He always did that.” She lifted her gaze again to the mountain, and was silent.

“Tell me a little more? Just a little? Don’t you remember anything he said?”

“He used to preach, but I was too little to remember what he said. They used to have preaching in the schoolhouse, and in winter he used to teach there — when he could get the children to come. They had no books, but he marked with charcoal where they could all see, and showed them writing and figures; but somehow they got the idea he didn’t know religion right, and they wouldn’t go to hear him any more. Mother says it nigh broke his heart, for he fell to ailing and grew that thin and white he couldn’t climb to his path any more.”