the
wheel of Labor, a needed rest--needed in every way for tired and
worn-out brain and muscle, soul and body; but I believe in telling the
truth," sez he.

He always wuz a very truthful boy--born so, we spoze. Almost too
truthful at times, his ma used to think. She used to have to whip him
time and agin for bringin' out secret things before company, such as
borrowed dishes, and runnin's of other females, and such.

So we wuz obliged to listen to his remarks with a certain amount of
respect, for we knew that he meant every word that he said, and we knew
that he had studied deep into ancient history, no matter how much
mistook we felt that he wuz.

But Miss Yerden spoke up, and sez she--

"I don't care whether it is true or not. I have always said, and always
will say, that if any belief goes aginst the Bible, I had ruther believe
in the Bible than in the truth any time."

And more than half of us wimmen agreed with her.

You see, so many reverent, and holy, and divine thoughts and memories
clustered round that book, that we didn't love to have 'em disturbed. It
wuz like havin' somebody take a spade and dig up the voyalets and lilies
on the grave of the nearest and dearest, to try to prove sunthin' or
ruther.

We feel in such circumstances that we had ruther be mistook than to have
them sweet posies disturbed and desecrated.

Holy words of counsel, and reproof, and consolation delivered from the
Most High to His saints and prophets--words that are whispered over our
cradles, and whose truth enters our lives with our mother's milk; that
sustains us and helps us to bear the hard toils and burdens of the day
of life, and that go with us through the Valley and the Shadow--the only
revelation we have of God's will to man, the written testimony of His
love and compassion, and the only map in which we trace our titles clear
to a heavenly inheritance.

If errors and mistakes have crept in through the weaknesses of men, or
if the pages have become blotted by the dust of time, we hated to have
'em brung out and looked too clost into--we hated to, like a dog.

So we, most all of us, had a fellow feelin' for Miss Yerden, and looked
approvin' at her.

And Lihu, seein' we looked cold at him, and bein' sensitive, and havin'
a hard cold, he said "he guessed he would go over to the drug-store and
git some hoarhoun candy for his cough."

So he went out. And then Miss Cork spoke up, and sez she--

"How it would look in th