On a bench at one end of the porch old Adam was sitting, and at sight of them, he rose, and stood waiting with his pipe in his hand.
"As 'twas sech a fine day an' thar warn't any work on hand for a man of my years, I thought I'd walk over an' pay my respects to you," he said. "I've heard that 'twas yo' granddaughter's birthday an' that she's like to change her name befo' it's time for another."
"Well, I'm glad to see you, old Adam," replied Reuben, sinking into a chair while he invited his visitor to another. "I've gone kind of faint, honey," he added, "an' I reckon we'd both like a sip of blackberry wine if you've got it handy. Miss Kesiah gave me something to drink, but my throat was so stiff I couldn't swallow it."
The blackberry wine was kept in a large stone crock in the cellar, and while she filled the glasses, Molly heard the voice of old Adam droning on above the chirping of the birds in the orchard.
"I've been settin' here steddyin' them weeds out thar over-runnin' everything," he was saying, "an' it does appear to a considerin' body that the Lord might have made 'em good grass an' grain with precious little trouble to Himself an' a mortal lot of satisfaction to the po' farmers."
"He knows best. He knows best," responded Reuben.
"Well, I used to think that way befo' I'd looked into the matter," rejoined the other, "but the deeper I get, the less reason I see to be sartain sure. 'Tis the fashion for parsons, an' for some people outside of the pulpit, to jump to conclusions, an' the one they've jumped the farthest to get at, is that things are all as they ought to be. If you ain't possessed of the gift of logic it takes with you, but if you are possessed of it, it don't. Now, I tell you that if a farmer was to try to run his farm on the wasteful scale on which this world is conducted, thar wouldn't be one among us as would trust him with next season's crops. 'Tis sech a terrible waste that it makes a frugal mind sick to see it."
"Let's be thankful that it isn't any worse. He might have made it so," replied Reuben, shocked by his neighbour's irreverence, yet too modest to dispute it with authority.
"Now, if that's logic I don't know what logic is, though I was born with the gift of it," retorted old Adam. "When twenty seeds rot in the ground an' one happens up, thar're some folks as would praise the Lord for the one and say nothin' about the twenty. These same folks are forever drawin' picturs of wild things hoppin' an' skippin' in the woods, as if they ever had time to hop an' skip when they're obleeged to keep one eye on the fox an' the hawk an' t'other on the gun of the hunter. Yet to hear Mr. Mullen talk in the pulpit, you'd think that natur was all hoppin' an' skippin'."
"You're a wicked unbeliever," said Reuben, mildly sorrowful, "an' you ought to go home and pray over your thankless doubts."