[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING TO MEETING.]

"Yes," says Josiah.

"2 elfants, and rinosterhorses, and snakes, and snakes, and bears, and tigers, and cows, and camels, and hens?"

"Yes, yes."

"And flies, uncle Josiah?-did they drive in two flies? and mud-turkles? and b.u.mble-bees? and muskeeters? Say, uncle Josiah, did they drive in muskeeters?"

"I s'pose so."

"How could they drive in two muskeeters?"

"Oh! less stop talkin' for a spell-shet up your little mouth," says Josiah in a winnin' tone, pattin' him on his head.

"I can shut up my mouth, uncle Josiah, but I can't shut up my thinker."

Josiah sithed; and, right while he wus a sithin', the boy commenced agin on a new tack.

"What for a lookin' place was paradise?" And then follered 800 questions about paradise. Josiah sweat, and offered to let the boy come back, and set with me. He had insisted, when we started from the meetin'-house, on havin' the boy set on the front seat between him and Ury.

But I demurred about any change, and leaned back, and eat a sweet apple. I don't think it is wrong Sundays to eat a sweet apple. And the boy kep' on.

"What did Adam fall off of? Did he fall out of the apple-tree?"

"No, no! he fell because he sinned."

But the boy went right on, in a tone of calm conviction,-

"No big man would be apt to fall a walking right along. He fell out of the apple-tree."

And then he says, after a minute's still thought,-

"I believe, if I had been there, and had a string round Adam's leg, I could kep' him from fallin' off;-and say, where was the Lord? Couldn't He have kept him? say, couldn't He?"

"Yes: He can do any thing."

"Wall, then, why didn't He?"

Josiah groaned, low.

"If Adam hadn't fell, I wouldn't have fell, would I?-nor you-nor Ury- nor anybody?"

"No: I s'pose not."

"Wall, wouldn't it have paid to kept Adam up? Say, uncle Josiah, say!"

"Oh! less talk about sunthin' else," says my poor Josiah. "Don't you want a sweet apple?"

"Yes; and say! what kind of a apple was it that Adam eat? Was it a sweet apple, or a greening, or a sick-no-further? And say, was it right for all of us to fall down because Adam did? And how did I sin just because a man eat an apple, and fell out of an apple-tree, when I never saw the apple, or poked him offen the tree, or joggled him, or any thing- when I wasn't there? Say, how was it wrong, uncle Josiah? When I wasn't there!"

My poor companion, I guess to sort o' pacify him, broke out kinder a singin' in a tone full of f.a.g, "'In Adam's fall, we sinned all.'" Josiah is sound.

"And be I a sinning now, uncle Josiah? and a falling? And is everybody a sinning and a falling jest because that one man eat one apple, and fell out of an apple-tree? Say, is it right, uncle Josiah, for you and me, and everybody that is on the earth, to keep a falling, and keep a falling, and bein' blamed, and every thing, when we hadn't done any thing, and wasn't there? And say, will folks always keep a falling?"

"Yes, if they hain't good."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSIAH CLOSING THE CONVERSATION.]

"How can they keep a falling? If Adam fell out of the apple-tree, wouldn't he have struck on the ground, and got up agin? And if anybody falls, why, why, mustn't they come to the bottom sometime? If there is something to fall off of, mustn't there be something to hit against? And say"-

Here the boy's eyes looked dreamier than they had looked, and further off.

"Was I made out of dirt, uncle Josiah?"

"Yes: we are all made out of dust."

"And did G.o.d breathe our souls into us? Was it His own self, His own life, that was breathed into us?"

"Yes," says Josiah, in a more f.a.gged voice than he had used durin' the intervue, and more hopelesser.

"Wall, if G.o.d is in us, how can He lose us again? Wouldn't it be a losing His own self? And how could G.o.d lose Himself? And what did He find us for, in the first place, if He wus going to lose us again?"

Here Josiah got right up in the Democrat, and lifted the boy, and sot him over on the seat with me, and took the lines out of Ury's hands, and drove the old mair at a rate that I told him wus shameful on Sunday, for a perfessor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WUS ON A SLAY-RIDE "]

CHAPTER II.

Wall, Cicely and the boy staid till Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon the children wus all to home on a invitation. (I had a chicken-pie, and done well by 'em.)

And nothin' to do but what Cicely and the boy must go home with 'em: they jest think their eyes of Cicely. And I couldn't blame 'em for wantin' her, though I hated to give her up.

She laid out to stay a few days, and then come back to our house for a day or two, and then go on to her aunt Mary's. But, as it turned out, the children urged her so, she stayed most two weeks.

And the very next day but one after Cicely went to the children's-And don't it beat all how, if visitors get to comin', they'll keep a comin'? jest as it is if you begin to have trials, you'll have lots of 'em, or broken dishes, or any thing.

Wall, it wus the very next mornin' but one after Cicely had gone, and my voice had actually begun to sound natural agin (the boy had kep' me hoa.r.s.e as a frog answerin' questions). I wus whitewashin' the kitchen, havin' put it off while Cicely wus there; and there wus a man to work a patchin' up the wall in one of the chambers,-and right there and then, Elburtus Smith Gansey come. And truly, we found him as clever a critter as ever walked the earth.

It wus jest before korkuss; and he wus kinder visatin' round amongst his relations, and makin' himself agreable. He is my 5th cousin,-5th or 6th. I can't reely tell which, and I don't know as I care much; for I think, that, after you get by the 5th, it hain't much matter anyway. I sort o' pile 'em all in promiscous. Jest as it is after anybody gets to be 70 years old, it hain't much matter how much older they be: they are what you may call old, anyway.

But I think, as I said prior and beforehand, that he wus a 5th. His mother wus a Butrick, and her mother wus a Smith. So he come to make us a visit, and sort o' ellectioneer round. He wanted to get put in county judge; and so, the korkuss bein' held in Jonesville, I s'pose he thought he'd come down, and endear himself to us, as they all do.

I am one that likes company first-rate, and I always try to do well by 'em; but I tell Josiah, that somehow city folks (Elburtus wus brought up in a city) are a sort of a bother. They require so much, and give you the feelin', that, when you are a doin' your very best for 'em, they hain't satisfied. You see, some folks'es best hain't nigh so good as other folks'es 3d or 4th.

But this feller-why! I liked him from the first minute I sot my eyes on him. I hadn't seen him before sence I wus a child, and so didn't feel so awful well acquainted with him; or, that is, I didn't, as it were, feel intimate. You know, when you don't see anybody from the time you are babies till you are married, and have lost a good many teeth, and considerable hair, you can't feel over and above intimate with 'em at first sight.