ways.

"Maybe if Amos'd set still that day, things would 'a' been different
with him and Marthy all their lives, and then again, maybe it didn't
make any difference. It's hard to tell jest what makes things go wrong
in this world and what makes 'em go right. It's a mighty little thing
for a man to git up and leave his wife settin' alone in a pew for a
few minutes, but then there's mighty few things in this life that
ain't little, till you git to follerin' 'em up and seein' what they
come to."

I thought of Pippa's song:

"Say not a small event! Why 'small'?
Costs it more pain that this, ye call
A great event, should come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!"

And Aunt Jane went serenely on:

"Anyhow, it wasn't long till Amos was goin' to his church and Marthy
to hers, and they kept that up the rest of their lives. Still, they
might 'a' got along well enough this way, for married folks don't have
to think alike about everything, but they was eternally arguin' about
their church doctrines. If Amos grumbled about the weather, Marthy'd
say, 'Ain't everything predestined? Warn't this drought app'inted
before the foundation of the world? What's the sense in grumblin' over
the decrees of God?' And it got so that if Amos wanted to grumble over
anything, he had to git away from home first, and that must 'a' been
mighty wearin' on him; for, as a rule, a man never does any grumblin'
except at home; but pore Amos didn't have that privilege. Sam Amos
used to say---Sam wasn't a church-member himself--that there was some
advantages about bein' a Babtist after all; you did have to go under
the water, but then you had the right to grumble. But if a man
believed that everything was predestined before the foundations of the
world, there wasn't any sense or reason in findin' fault with anything
that happened. And he believed that he'd ruther jine the Babtist
church than the Presbyterian, for he didn't see how he could carry on
his farm without complainin' about the weather and the crops and
things in general.

"If Marthy and Amos'd been divided on anything but their churches, the
children might 'a' brought 'em together; but every time a child was
born matters got worse. Amos, of course, wanted 'em all babtized in
infancy, and Marthy wanted 'em immersed when they j'ined the church,
and so it went. Amos had his way about the