“You all have had some trouble, I heer, sence I saw you last,” said the preacher as he sat down and began to wipe his perspiring brow with a big handkerchief. “Well, I reckon it mought be called that,” Abner replied, as he carefully folded his newspaper and put it into his coat-pocket. “None of us was expectin' of it an' it sorter bu'sted our calculations. Alf had laid out to put new high-back benches in Rock Crest, an' new lamps an' one thing another, an' it seems to me”--Abner wiped his too facile mouth--“like I heerd 'im say one day that you wasn't paid enough fer yore thunder, an' that he'd stir around an' see what could be done.” Abner's eyes twinkled. “But lawsy me! I reckon ef he kin possibly raise the scads to pay the tax on his investment next yeer he 'll do all the Lord expects.” “Huh, I reckon!” grunted Dole, irritated as usual by Abner's double meaning. “I take it that the Lord hain't got much to do with human speculations one way or other.” “Ef I just had that scamp that roped 'im in before me a minute I'd fix 'im,” said Abner. “Do you know what denomination Perkins belongs to?” “No, I don't,” Dole blurted out, “an' what's more, I don't care.” “Well, I acknowledge it sorter interests me,” went on our philosopher, in an inscrutable tone, “beca'se, brother Dole, you kin often trace a man' s good ur bad doin' s to his belief in Bible matters. Maybe you don't remember Jabe Lynan that stold Thad Wilson's stump-suckin' hoss an' was ketched an' put up. I was at the court-house in Darley when he received his sentence. His wife sent me to 'im to carry his pipe an' one thing or other--a pair o' socks an' other necessary tricks--a little can o' lye-soap, fer one thing. She hadn't the time to go, as she said she had a patch o' young corn to hoe out. I found 'im as happy as ef he was goin' off on a excursion. He laughed an' 'lowed it ud be some time 'fore he got back, an' I wondered what could 'a' made him so contented, so I made some inquiries on that line. I found that he was a firm believer in predestination, an' that what was to be was foreordained. He said that he firmly believed he was predestinated to go to the coal-mines fer hoss-stealin', an' that life was too short to be kickin' agin the Lord's way o' runnin' matters; besides, he said, he'd heerd that they issued a plug o'.tobacco a week to chawin' prisoners, an' he could prove that he was one o' that sort ef they'd look how he'd ground his jaw-teeth down to the gums.”