"There's lots of satisfactory things in this world, child," she said, beaming at me over her spectacles with the smile of the optimist who is born, not made. "There's a satisfaction in roundin' off the toe of a stockin', like I'm doin' now, and knowin' that your work's goin' to keep somebody's feet warm next winter. There's a satisfaction in bakin' a nice, light batch o' bread for the children to eat up. There's a satisfaction in settin' on the porch in the cool o' the evenin' and thinkin' o' the good day's work behind you, and another good day that's comin' to-morrow. This world ain't a vale o' tears unless you make it so on purpose. But of all the satisfactions I ever experienced, the most satisfyin' is to see people git their just deserts right here in this world. I don't blame David for bein' out o' patience when he saw the wicked flourishin' like a green bay tree.
"I never was any hand for puttin' things off, whether it's work or punishment; and I've never got my own consent to this way o' skeerin' people with a hell and wheedlin' 'em with a heaven way off yonder in the next world. I ain't as old as Methuselah, but I've lived long enough to find out a few things; and one of 'em is that if people don't die before their time, they'll git their heaven and their hell right here in this world. And whenever I feel like doubtin' the justice o' the Lord, I think o' Milly Baker's boy, and how he got everything that belonged to him, and he didn't have to die and go to heaven to git it either."
"'Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.'"
I quoted the lines musingly, watching meanwhile their effect on Aunt Jane. Her eyes sparkled as her quick brain took in the meaning of the poet's words.
"That's it!" she exclaimed,—"that's it! I don't mind waitin' myself and seein' other folks wait, too, a reasonable time, but I do like to see everybody, sooner or later, git the grist that rightly belongs to 'em."
