Halfway through the meal the rain started coming down, solid sheets of rain that hammered at the shaky house, making such an uproar that we had to raise our voices to be heard above it.

"There ain't nothing," said the man, once he had begun to slow his shoveling in of food, "that is better than hog jowls, barring mayhaps a possum. Now, you take a possum and you fixed him up with sweet pertaters and there ain't a thing that goes down as smooth. Used to have a lot of possum, but we ain't had one of them for a coon's age now. To collect a possum a man must have a dog and after old Preacher up and died, I didn't have the heart to get another dog. I purely loved that pup and I couldn't bring myself to get another dog to take his place."

The woman wiped a tear away. "He was the finest dog we ever had," she said. "Just like family. He slept underneath the stove and it got so hot at times that his fur would sort of sizzle, but he never seemed to mind. I guess he liked it hot. Maybe you think Preacher is a funny name to call a dog, but he looked just like a preacher. Acted like one, too, solemn, and sort of dignified and sad…"

"Except when he was hunting possum," Paw said. "He was a ring-tailed terror when he was after possum."

"We never did mean to be irreligious," said the woman. "You just couldn't call him by any other name even if you tried. He looked just like a preacher."

We finished eating and Paw put the pipe back into his mouth and reached for the jug.

"Thanks," I said, "but no more for me. I must be getting on. If you'd let me take a few sticks from the woodpile, I might be able to wedge them underneath the wheels…"

"I wouldn't think on it," said Paw. "Not in this storm, I wouldn't. It'd be a scandal to the jaybirds to let you go out in it. You stay here snug and dry and we'll do some drinking and you can start tomorrow. We ain't got a second bed, but we have a couch you can stretch out on. It's real comfortable and you won't have no trouble sleeping. The horses will come down early in the morning and we can catch them up and drag you out of there."