“‘Pears to me you run to Scripture more than usual this mornin’,” said Mrs. Hayn, after putting her pans of dough into the oven. “What’s started you?” “Oh, only a little kind of awakenin’, I s’pose,” said the old man. “I can’t keep my mind off of what’s goin’ on right under my eyes, an’ it’s so unlike what anybody would have expected that I can’t help goin’ behind the returns, as they used to say in politics. An’ when I do that there’s only one way of seein’ ’em, an’ I’m glad I’ve got the eyes to see ’em in that light.” “So am I,” said Mrs. Hayn, gently but successfully putting a floury impression of four fingers and a thumb on her husband’s head. “I s’pose it’s ’cause I’m so tired of waitin’ that I don’t look at things just as you do. ’Pears to me there’s nothin’ that comes up, an’ that our hearts get set on, but what we’ve got to wait for. It gets to be awful tiresome, after you’ve been at it thirty or forty years. I think Phil might hurry up matters a little.” “Mebbe ’tisn’t Phil’s fault,” suggested the farmer. “Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, with a flash behind her glasses, “I don’t see why any gal should keep _that_ boy a-waitin’, if that’s what you mean.” “Don’t, eh?” drawled the old man, with a queer smile and a quizzical look. “Well, I s’pose he _is_ a good deal more takin’ than his father was.” “No such thing,” said the old lady. “Much obliged: I’m a good deal too polite to contradict,--when you’re so much in earnest, you know,” the old man replied. “But if it’s so, what’s the reason that you kept _him_ waitin’?” “Why, I--it was--you see, I--’twas--the way of it was--sho!” And Mrs. Hayn suddenly noticed that a potted geranium in the kitchen window needed a dead leaf removed from its base. “Yes,” said her husband, following her with his eyes. “An’ I suppose that’s just about what Phil’s gal would say, if any one was to ask her. But the longer you waited the surer I was of you, wasn’t I?” “Oh, don’t ask questions when you know the answer as well as I do,” said the old lady. “I want to see things come to a head; that’s all.” “They’ll come; they’ll come,” said the old man. “It’s tryin’ to wait, I know, seein’ I’m doin’ some of the waitin’ myself; but ‘the tryin’ of your faith worketh patience,’ an’ ‘let patience have her perfect work,’ you remember.” “More Scripture!” sighed the wife. “You’re gettin’ through a powerful sight of New Testament this mornin’, Reuben, an’ I s’pose I deserve it, seein’ the way I feel like fightin’ it. But s’pose this company speculation don’t come to anythin’? then Phil’ll be a good deal wuss off than he is now, won’t he? You remember the awful trouble Deacon Trewk got into by bein’ the head of that new-fangled stump-and-stone-puller company, that didn’t pull any to speak of. Everybody came down on him, an’ called him all sorts of names, an’ said he’d lied to ’em, an’ they would go to the poor-house because of the money they’d put in it on his advice, an’----”