“She has chosen a perfect spot,” I thought to myself, for it was the wildest bit of forest I had seen anywhere in this neighbourhood.  At one side, not far off, rose a huge gray rock, partly covered on one side with moss, and round about were oaks and a few ash trees of a poor scrubby sort (else they would long ago have been cut out).  The earth underneath was soft and springy with leaf mould.—­

Mr. Purdy was one to whom silence was painful; he fidgeted about, evidently bursting with talk, and yet feeling compelled to follow his own injunction of silence.  Presently he reached into his capacious pocket and handed me a little paper-covered booklet.  I took it, curious, and read the title: 

“Is There a Hell?”

It struck me humorously.  In the country we are always—­at least some of us are—­more or less in a religious ferment, The city may distract itself to the point where faith is unnecessary; but in the country we must, perforce, have something to believe in.  And we talk about it, too!  I read the title aloud, but in a low voice: 

“Is There a Hell?” Then I asked:  “Do you really want to know?”

“The argument is all there,” he replied.

“Well,” I said, “I can tell you off-hand, out of my own experience, that there certainly is a hell——­”

He turned toward me with evident astonishment, but I proceeded with tranquillity: 

“Yes, sir, there’s no doubt about it.  I’ve been near enough myself several times to smell the smoke.  It isn’t around here,” I said.

As he looked at me his china-blue eyes grew larger, if that were possible, and his serious, gentle face took on a look of pained surprise.

“Before you say such things,” he said, “I beg you to read my book.”

He took the tract from my hands and opened it on his knee.

“The Bible tells us,” he said, “that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, He made the firmament and divided the waters.  But does the Bible say that He created a hell or a devil?  Does it?”

I shook my head.

“Well, then!” he said triumphantly, “and that isn’t all, either.  The historian Moses gives in detail a full account of what was made in six days.  He tells how day and night were created, how the sun and the moon and the stars were made; he tells how God created the flowers of the field, and the insects, and the birds, and the great whales, and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ He accounts for every minute of the time in the entire six days—­and of course God rested on the seventh—­and there is not one word about hell.  Is there?”

I shook my head.

“Well then—­” exultantly, “where is it?  I’d like to have any man, no matter how wise he is, answer that.  Where is it?”

“That,” I said, “has troubled me, too.  We don’t always know just where our hells are.  If we did we might avoid them.  We are not so sensitive to them as we should be—­do you think?”