“Bless yo' h'art—that's right. I know'd you'd quit yo' mischeev'us ways an' come in—an' I honor you fur it, Archie B.—praise the Lord!”
Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:
“But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' me very much. It makes me think, perhaps—I—ain't—ain't worthy of—the bestowal of—the grace—you know, the kind I heard you speak of?”
“Tell me, Archie B., lad—an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po' way.”
“Well, now; it's this—jes' suppose you wus goin' along now—say to school, an' seed a dorg, say his name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat up a little monkey; an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an' Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' a-sickin' him on the po' little monkey—this big savage dorg. An' suppose now you feel sorry for the monkey an' somethin'—you can't tell what—but somethin' mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's side—so plain you cu'd read it—like it told David—an' the dorg wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus—”
“Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would,” said the Bishop impressively.
Archie B. smiled: “Bishop, you've called my hand—I wus for that monkey.”
The old man smiled approvingly: “Good—good—Archie B.”
“Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted—oh, that is good. I'm bettin' the monkey downed him, the Lord bein' on his side.”
“But, s'pose furst,” went on Archie B. argumentatively, “that you wanted to give some money fur a little church that you wanted to j'ine—up on the mountain side, a little po'-fo'k church, that depended on charity—”