'in."

"No, his heart is black."

"There is a fountain where it may be made white," said the preacher.

Sadly she smiled at him and replied: "To that fountain he would never
go."

Old Jasper jingled and clanked the iron of his harness. "I don't know
much about fountains," said he, "but I know a good deal about men, and
I never seed one with a black heart that ever had it washed out clean.
I never knowd a scoundrel that wan't allus a scoundrel, and the Book
don't say that the Savior died for scoundrels--died for sinners. A
sinner kin be a fust-rate feller, full o' that weakness that helps a
wretch outen trouble. The Savior knowed that and died for him."

Margaret slammed her pan of turnips down upon the table. "Oh, sometimes
I'm so put out with you."

"Yes," drawled the old man, "and old Miz Eve was put out with Adam, too,
but atter all the best thing she could do, was to stick to him and go
whar he went."

"Oh, of course," said Margaret. "The only use a man ever has for the
Bible is to hit a woman with it." She went over to a safe, looking back
at her husband who stood watching her, his droll countenance lighted
with a humorous grin; she began to mix meal in a pan, stirring
vigorously to make up corn pone, throwing in water with a dash. Tom and
Lou were still engaged with the verses.

"What is this line?" she asked.

"'Her eye a star of heart's most gleaming hope,'" he read, and she
purred like a kitten.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"Why, er--it means all sorts of things."

"It sounds like things you find in a book, but this is in writin', isn't
it? And--and it smells like a violet in the woods."

"What have they got thar, a mortgage?" Jasper inquired of Mrs. Mayfield.

"The beginning of many a mortgage, Mr. Starbuck; some verses."

"Huh," grunted the old man, "I don't reckon they are like some verses I
had not long ago. Had a lawsuit befo' a jestice of the peace and they
called it Starbuck verses Brown."

Margaret ceased her work of mixing corn pone and looked round at him.
"Jasper, anybody to hear you talk would think you don't know nuthin'."

"Well," Starbuck replied, "that's the way to find out that a man don't
know nuthin'--by hearin' him talk. Feller over the mountains had a son
that was deef and dumb for twenty-odd year. Everybody lowed he was the
smartest one of the fam'ly. But finally a doctor teached him how to talk
and then they found out that he wan't nuthin' but a damned fool."