The God I trust is the One that makes flowers like them bloom for sech
as me," she began, pointing through the window at a rose; "that lets
His rain fall in my garden same as He does in your'n; that never takes
His spite out on me for bein' what I was, but jest made it hard for me
and waited patient for me. He's the kind of God, sir, that can change
a heart like mine from all the evil there is, and make it so I can
think good thoughts and be kind, and enjoy His hills and hear the birds
sing again, same as I used to pay attention to 'em when I was a little
gal."

She lowered her voice as if speaking of a mortal sorrow. "There were
years and years, sir, when them little creatures were singin' all
around me every day, but I couldn't hear 'em--my deeds were so evil. I
don't reckon you know it--livin' the little you have--but sin affects
you that way--takes away your hearin' for sweet sounds, your sight for
what is lovely. But God, He jest kept on lettin' His birds sing for
me, and the sun riz jest as fine above the hills behind my house. He
didn't pick at me, nor put a sign on me same as folks did of my shame,
as He could have done with a cloud or something over my house. You
see, He'd fixed things from the foundations of the world so as they'd
work out good and not evil for us every one, beca'se He knowed we'd all
git tired and come home some time, the same as I've come. I don't know
whether you ever found it out or not, sir, but sinners git awful tired
of sinnin'. God knows that. He knows they just can't keep it up
forever!"

The next winter Sal Prout died of smallpox, after nursing a community
of sawmill hands farther up in the mountains who had been stricken with
the disease, and many of whom must have died but for her care.

William never recovered from that attack of rheumatism. His legs got
well, but he did not. He was different afterward, as if he had fallen
into a trance. He seemed always to look and speak across a space of
which he was not conscious. He filled his appointments after a fashion
during the remainder of the year at the Bowtown district, but he grew
increasingly forgetful of people and all earthly considerations.
Sometimes he fell to dreaming in the middle of his sermon, looking over
the heads of his congregation as if he was expecting Noah's dove to
bring him a token or Michael to blow his trumpet. Then again he would
make his prayer longer than his sermon. The people did not like it,