he defensive.

"Oh, you can't, can't you?" jeered Sarah. "All you're good for, I
reckon, is to shuck corn or peel potatoes!"

For a minute Abel stared at her in silence. "I declare, mother, I don't
believe you're any better than a heathen," he remarked sadly at last.

"Well, I'm not the kind of Christian you are, anyway," retorted Sarah,
"I'd like to know whar you'll find anything in Scripture about not
knockin' a man down because he asks you for a lantern. I thought I knew
my Bible--but I reckon you are better acquainted with it--you an' yo'
Mr. Mullen."

"Of course, you know your Bible. I wasn't meanin' that."

"Then if readin' yo' Bible ain't bein' a Christian, I suppose it's
havin' curly hair, an' gittin' up in the pulpit an' mincin'. Who are
those slippers for, Keren-happuch?"

"Mr. Mullen, grandma."

"Well, if I was goin' to embroider slippers for a minister," taunted
Sarah, "I'd take care to choose one that could repeat his Scripture when
he was called on."

"Ah, 'tis the age, not the man," lamented grandfather, "'tis an age of
small larnin' an' weak-kneed an' mealy mouthed into the bargain. Why,
they're actually afeared to handle hell-fire in the pulpit any longer,
an' the texts they spout are that tame an' tasteless that 'tis like
dosin' you with flaxseed tea when you're needin' tar-water. 'Twas
different when I was young and in my vigour," he went on eagerly,
undisturbed by the fact that nobody paid the slightest attention to what
he was saying, "for sech was the power and logic of Parson Claymore's
sermons that he could convict you of the unpardonable sin against the
Holy Ghost even when you hadn't committed it. A mo' blameless soul never
lived than my father, yet I remember one Sunday when parson fixed his
eye upon him an' rolled out his stirrin' text 'Thou art the man,' he
was so taken by surprise an' suddenness that he just nodded back at the
pulpit 'an answered, 'Yes, parson, I am, if you'll excuse me.'"

"It's a pity ain't mo' like Parson Claymore now," remarked Sarah, who
had stopped to listen to the concluding words of the anecdote. "Thar
ain't vim enough in this generation of preachers to skeer a rabbit."

Her profile, with its sparse wave of hair from the forehead, was
repeated in grotesque exaggeration on the wall at her back. The iron
will in her lent a certain metallic hardness to her features, and her
shadow resembled in outline the head on some ancient coin that had lain
buried for c