going on but for one event which came like an explosion on the quiet neighborhood. The echo of the explosion, Mrs. Pruett claims, was not heard until Toog Parmalee's pistol went off close to his sweetheart's bosom—and that was only the other day.
Now, the war began gently enough and went along easily enough so far as Tray Mountain was concerned. Its sunsets were not more golden nor its wonderful dawns rosier on that account. The thunders that shook Manassas, and Malvern Hill, and Gettysburg, gave forth no sounds in the crags of Tray. If the truth must be told, there are no crags nearer than those of Yonah, or those which lift up and form the chasm of Tallulah, for Tray is a commonplace, drowsy old mountain, and it does nothing but sit warming its sway-back in the sun or cooling it in the rain.
But Tray Mountain had one attraction, if no other, and the name of this attraction was Loorany Parmalee. In a moment of high good humor, Mrs. Pruett remarked that "ef Jerd had any fault in the world it was in bein' too good." Paraphrase this tender tribute, and it would fit Loorany Parmalee to
