In contrast, the scene glimpsed through the low window
at the back of the shop had a certain vivid illuminated effect. A spider
web, revealing its geometric perfection, hung half across one corner
of the rude casement; the moonbeams without were individualized in fine
filar delicacy, like the ravellings of a silver skein. The boughs of a
tree which grew on a slope close below almost touched the lintel; the
leaves seemed a translucent green; a bird slept on a twig, its head
beneath its wing.

Back of the cabin, which was situated on a limited terrace, the great
altitudes of the mountain rose into the infinity of the night.

The drawling conversation was beset, as it were, by faint fleckings of
sound, lightly drawn from a crazy old fiddle under the chin of a gaunt,
yellow-haired young giant, one Ephraim Blinks, who lolled on a log,
and who by these vague harmonies unconsciously gave to the talk of his
comrades a certain theatrical effect.

Grinnell slouched up and sat down among them, responding with a nod to
the unceremonious "Hy're, Job?" of the blacksmith, who seemed thus to do
the abbreviated honors of the occasion. The others did not so formally
notice his coming.

The subject of conversation was the same that had pervaded his own
thoughts. He was irritated to observe how Purdee had usurped public
attention, and yet he himself listened with keenest interest.

"Waal," said the ponderous blacksmith, "I kin onderstan' mighty well ez
Moses would hev been mighty mad ter see them folks a-worshippin' o' a
calf--senseless critters they be! 'Twarn't no use flingin' down them
rocks, though, an' gittin' 'em bruk. Sandstone ain't like metal; ye
can't heat it an' draw it down an' weld it agin."

His round black head shone in the moonlight, glistening because of his
habit of plunging it, by way of making his toilet, into the barrel of
water where he tempered his steel. He crossed his huge folded bare arms
over his breast, and leaned back against the door on two legs of the
rickety chair.

"Naw, sir," another chimed in. "He mought hev knowed he'd jes hev ter go
ter quarryin' agin."

"They air always a-crackin' up them folks in the Bible ez sech powerful
wise men," said another, whose untrained mind evidently held the germs
of advanced thinking. "'Pears ter me ez some of 'em conducted tharselves
ez foolish ez enny folks I know--this hyar very Moses one o' 'em.
Throwin' down them rocks 'minds me o' old man Pinner's tantrums