Josiah groaned, low.
“If Adam hadn't fell, I wouldn't have fell, would I?—nor you—nor Ury—nor anybody?”
“No: I s'pose not.”
“Wall, wouldn't it have paid to kept Adam up? Say, uncle Josiah, say!”
“Oh! less talk about sunthin' else,” says my poor Josiah. “Don't you want a sweet apple?”
“Yes; and say! what kind of a apple was it that Adam eat? Was it a sweet apple, or a greening, or a sick-no-further? And say, was it right for all of us to fall down because Adam did? And how did I sin just because a man eat an apple, and fell out of an apple-tree, when I never saw the apple, or poked him offen the tree, or joggled him, or any thing—when I wasn't there? Say, how was it wrong, uncle Josiah? When I wasn't there!”
My poor companion, I guess to sort o' pacify him, broke out kinder a singin' in a tone full of fag, “'In Adam's fall, we sinned all.'” Josiah is sound.
“And be I a sinning now, uncle Josiah? and a falling? And is everybody a sinning and a falling jest because that one man eat one apple, and fell out of an apple-tree? Say, is it right, uncle Josiah, for you and me, and everybody that is on the earth, to keep a falling, and keep a falling, and bein' blamed, and every thing, when we hadn't done any thing, and wasn't there? And say, will folks always keep a falling?”
“Yes, if they hain't good.”