“I reckon I don't to any great extent,” said Abner, clucking to his tired horses; “but it ain't raily to my credit. A feller's wrong som 'er's, Alan, that allows hisse'f to hate anything the Lord ever made. I've struggled agin that proposition fer twenty-five yeer. All this talk about the devil makin' the bad an' the Lord the good is talk through a hat. Bad things was made 'fore the devil ever jumped from his high estate ur he'd never preferred a fork to a harp. I've tuck notice, too, that the wust things I ever seed was sometimes at the root o' the best. Manure is a bad thing, but a cake of it will produce a daisy bigger 'n any in the field. Dole makes me gag sometimes; but as narrer as he is twixt the eyes, he may do some good. I reckon that hell-fire sermon he give us last August made some of the crowd sweat out a little o' the'r meanness. I'd 'a' been more merciful on sech a hot day, though. He mought 'a' reserved that harangue fer some cold day in December when the stove-flues wouldn't work. Ef I'd 'a' been a-goin' tell about future torment that hot day I'd 'a' said that every lost soul was made to set on a cake o' ice in a windy spot through all eternity, an' I'd 'a' started out by singin' 'On Greenland's Icy Mountain.' But that ain't what I axed you to git in my wagon fer.” “You didn't intend to try to convert me, then?” “No, I didn't, fer you are jest my sort of a Christian--better'n me, a sight, fer you don't shoot off yore bazoo on one side or t'other, an' that's the habit I'm tryin' to quit. Ef I could hold in when Dole gits to spoutin' I'd be a better man. I think I 'll do better now. I've got a tenpenny nail in my pocket an' whenever he starts in I'm goin' to bite it an' keep my holt on it till he stops. Yes, you are jest my sort of a Christian. You believe in breathin' fresh air into yore windpipe, thankin' God with a clear eye an' a good muscle, an' takin' what He gives you an' axin' 'Im to pass more ef it's handy. You know the Lord has sent you a invite to His table, an' you believe in eatin' an' drinkin' an' makin' merry, jest like you'd have a body do that was stoppin' over night with you. Yes, I wanted to say some 'n' else to you. As I got to the widder Snowden's house, a mile this side o' Darley, she came out an' axed me ef I'd object to deliverin' a couple o' smoke-cured hams to a feller in town that had ordered 'em. Of course that's what a' old bach' like me 's heer fer, so I let 'er fling 'em in the back end.” The speaker paused and smiled knowingly, and Alan noticed that he slowed his horses up by drawing firmly on the reins as if he feared that their arrival at the farm-house might interrupt what he had to say. “Well,” said Alan, “you delivered the hams?” “Yes.” Abner was looking straight ahead of him. “They was fer Colonel Seth Barclay. I driv' up to the side gate, after I'd helloed in front till I was hoarse, an' who do you reckon come trippin' out o' the dinin'-room?