right interestin’ in that book; be you readin’ hit?”

“I find a glorious prophecy. Was your first husband born and raised here as you were?”

“Not on this spot; but he was born an’ raised like we-uns here in the mountains — ovah th’other side Pisgah. I seed him first when I wa’n’t more’n seventeen. He come here fer — I don’t rightly recollect what, only he had been deer huntin’ an’ come late evenin’ he drapped in. He had lost his dog, an’ he had a bag o’ birds, an’ he axed maw could she cook ‘em an’ give him suppah, an’ maw, she took to him right smaht.

“Aftah suppah — I remember like hit war last evenin’ —