“He knows best.  He knows best,” responded Reuben.

“Well, I used to think that way befo’ I’d looked into the matter,” rejoined the other, “but the deeper I get, the less reason I see to be sartain sure.  ‘Tis the fashion for parsons, an’ for some people outside of the pulpit, to jump to conclusions, an’ the one they’ve jumped the farthest to get at, is that things are all as they ought to be.  If you ain’t possessed of the gift of logic it takes with you, but if you are possessed of it, it don’t.  Now, I tell you that if a farmer was to try to run his farm on the wasteful scale on which this world is conducted, thar wouldn’t be one among us as would trust him with next season’s crops.  ’Tis sech a terrible waste that it makes a frugal mind sick to see it.”

“Let’s be thankful that it isn’t any worse.  He might have made it so,” replied Reuben, shocked by his neighbour’s irreverence, yet too modest to dispute it with authority.

“Now, if that’s logic I don’t know what logic is, though I was born with the gift of it,” retorted old Adam.  “When twenty seeds rot in the ground an’ one happens up, thar’re some folks as would praise the Lord for the one and say nothin’ about the twenty.  These same folks are forever drawin’ picturs of wild things hoppin’ an’ skippin’ in the woods, as if they ever had time to hop an’ skip when they’re obleeged to keep one eye on the fox an’ the hawk an’ t’other on the gun of the hunter.  Yet to hear Mr. Mullen talk in the pulpit, you’d think that natur was all hoppin’ an’ skippin’.”

“You’re a wicked unbeliever,” said Reuben, mildly sorrowful, “an’ you ought to go home and pray over your thankless doubts.”

“I’m as I was made,” rejoined the other.  “I didn’t ax to be born an’ I’ve had to work powerful hard for my keep.”  Taking the glass of blackberry wine from Molly’s hand, he smacked his lips over it with lingering enjoyment.

“Do you feel better, grandfather?” inquired the girl, in the pause.

“The wine does me good, honey, but thar’s a queer gone feelin’ inside of me.  I’m twenty years younger than you, old Adam, but you’ve got mo’ youth left in you than I have.”

“’Tis my powerful belief in the Lord,” chuckled the elder, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and placing the glass on the end of the bench.  “No, no, Reuben, when it comes to that I ain’t any quarrel with folks for lookin’ al’ays at the pleasant side, but what staggers me is why they should take it as a merit to themselves when ‘tis nothin’ less than a weakness of natur.  A man might jest as well pride himself that he can’t see out of but one eye or hear out of but one ear as that he can’t see nothin’ but good when evil is so mixed up into it.  Thar ain’t all of us born with the gift of logic, but even when we ain’t we might set silent an’ listen to them that is.”

A south wind, rising beyond the river, blew over the orchard, and the barred shadows swung back and forth on the grass.