g gentleman in the picture--even if the belt
did send out a lot of electric wiggles all the time. But, of course,
Cousin Bill J. knew best. He looked forward to having his father meet this
new hero--feeling that each was perfect in his own way.

CHAPTER VIII

SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES

Around the evening lamp that winter the little boys studied Holy Writ,
while Allan made summaries of it for the edification of the proud
grandfather in far-off Florida.

Tersely was the creation and the fall of man set forth, under promptings
and suggestions from Clytie and Cousin Bill J., who was no mean Bible
authority: how God, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day," found
his first pair ashamed of their nakedness, and with his own hands made
them coats of skins and clothed them. "What a treasure those garments
would be in this evil day," said Clytie--"what a silencing rebuke to all
heretics!" But the Lord drove out the wicked pair, lest they "take also of
the tree of life and live forever," saying, "Behold, the man is become as
one of _us!_" This provoked a lengthy discussion the very first evening as
to whether it meant that there was more than one God. And Clytie's
view--that God called himself "Us" in the same sense that kings and
editors of newspapers do--at length prevailed over the polytheistic
hypothesis of Cousin Bill J.

On they read to the Deluge, when man became so very bad indeed that God
was sorry for ever having made him, and said: "I will destroy man whom I
have created from the face of the earth; both man and the beast and the
creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have
made them."

Hereupon Bernal suggested that all the white rabbits at least should have
been saved--thinking of his own two in the warm nest in the barn. He was
unable to see how white rabbits with twitching pink noses and pink rims
around their eyes could be an offense, or, indeed, other than a pure joy
even to one so good as God. But he gave in, with new admiration for the
ready mind of Cousin Bill J., who pointed out that white rabbits could not
have been saved because they were not fish. He even relished the dry quip
that maybe he, the little boy, thought white rabbits _were_ fish; but
Cousin Bill J. didn't, for his part.

Past the Tower of Babel they went, when the Lord "came down to see the
city and the tower," and made them suddenly talk strange tongues to one
another so they could not build the