in'
Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"

"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."

That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."

Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
years.

But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.

But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
be sent up.

Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.

The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.

The school-boys