hopin' I could get at him this mornin'. But no! Dorindy's sot on
havin' this yard raked, so I s'pose I've got to do it."

He had dropped the rake, but now he leaned over, picked it up, and rose
from the wash bench.

"I s'pose I've got to do it," he repeated, "unless," hopefully, "you
want me to run up to the village and do your errand for you."

"No; I hadn't any errand."

"Well, then I s'pose I'd better start in. Unless there was somethin'
else you'd ruther I'd do to-day. If there was I could do this
to-morrer."

"To-morrow would have one advantage: there would be more to rake then.
However, judging by Dorinda's temper this morning, I think, perhaps, you
had better do it to-day."

"What's Dorindy doin'?"

"She is dusting the dining-room."

"I'll bet you! And she dusted it yesterday and the day afore. Do you
know--" Lute sat down again on the bench--"sometimes I get real worried
about her."

"No! Do you?"

"Yes, I do. I think she works too hard. Seems's if sometimes it had kind
of struck to her brains--work, I mean. She don't think of nothin' else.
Now take the dustin', for instance. Dustin's all right; I believe in
dustin' things. But I don't believe in wearin' 'em out dustin' 'em. That
ain't sense, is it?"

"It doesn't seem like it, that's a fact."

"You bet it don't! And it ain't good religion, neither. Now take--well,
take this yard, for instance. What is it that I'm slavin' myself over
this fine mornin'? Why, rakin' this yard! And what am I rakin'? Why,
dead leaves from last fall, and straws and sticks and pieces of seaweed
and such that have blowed in durin' the winter. And what blowed 'em in?
Why, the wind, sartin! And whose wind was it? The Almighty's, that's
whose! Now then! if the Almighty didn't intend to have dead leaves
around why did he put trees for 'em to fall off of? If he didn't want
straws and seaweed and truck around why did He send them everlastin'
no'theasters last November? Did that idea ever strike you?"

"I don't know that it ever did, exactly in that way."

"No. Well, that's 'cause you ain't reasoned it out, same as I have.
You've got the same trouble that most folks have, you don't reason
things out. Now, let's look at it straight in the face." Lute let go of
the rake altogether and used both hands to illustrate his point. "That
finger there, we'll say, is me, rakin' and rakin' hard as ever I can.
And that fist there is the Almighty, not meanin' anything irreverent.
I rake,