ter tell me than the sheriff.... Asa Levens was here
Tuesday night...."

"He excused us from payin' our int'rest," said Jed, and then he, too,
laughed shrilly. "Let us off our int'rest. Lindy told me when I come
home. Couldn't hardly b'lieve my ears." Jed was talking wildly,
pitifully. "Lindy was a-layin' on the floor, sobbin', when I come home,
and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int'rest, but I
coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me--and so I shot Asa Levens 'cause
he wa'n't fit to live."

Scattergood nodded. "Sich things was wrote on Asa's face," he said. "But
what about Abner? Wa'n't goin' to let him suffer f'r your act, Jed? What
about Abner?"

"Him too.... All of that blood.... I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday
when I wa'n't quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his
hoss and accused his brother to his face.... He listened quiet-like, and
then he laughed. That's what Abner done, he laughed.... When I heard he
was arrested f'r the killin', I laughed.... Back in Bible times, if one
of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin...."

Scattergood was thoughtful. "Yes," he said, "Abner would have laughed.
That was like Abner.... Now I calc'late you and Mis' Briggs better fix
up and drive to town with me.... Don't be afeard. Right'll be done, and
there hain't no more sufferin' fallin' to your share, ... You been doin'
God's rough work, Jed, and I don't calc'late he figgers to have you
punished f'r it...."

Next morning at ten by the clock the coroner with his jury held inquest
over the body of Asa Levens, and over that body Jed Briggs and Lindy,
his wife, told their story under oath to ears that credited the truth of
their words because they knew the man of whom those words were spoken.
The jury deliberated briefly. Its verdict was in these words:

"We find that Asa Levens came to his death by act of God, and that there
are found no reasons for further investigation into this matter."

And so it stands in the imperishable records of the township; legal
authority recognized the right of Deity to utilize a human being for his
rougher sort of work.

"I knew it was something like this," Mary Ware said, clinging openly and
unashamed to Abner Levens. "It's why he couldn't defend himself."

Abner nodded. "My flesh and blood was guilty. Could I free myself by
accusin' the husband of this woman?... I calc'lated God meant to destroy
us Levenses, root and branch.... It was hi