“Hain’t it so, Mars Tom?”
“I guess so. Go on.”
“Ef a thing ain’t no good, it’s made in vain, ain’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now, den! Do de Lord make anything in vain? You answer me dat.”
“Well—no, He don’t.”
“Den how come He make a desert?”
“Well, go on. How did He come to make it?”
“Mars Tom, I b’lieve it uz jes like when you’s buildin’ a house; dey’s allays a lot o’ truck en rubbish lef’ over. What does you do wid it? Doan’ you take en k’yart it off en dump it into a ole vacant back lot? ’Course. Now, den, it’s my opinion hit was jes like dat—dat de Great Sahara warn’t made at all, she jes happen’.”
I said it was a real good argument, and I believed it was the best one Jim ever made. Tom he said the same, but said the trouble about arguments is, they ain’t nothing but theories, after all, and theories don’t prove nothing, they only give you a place to rest on, a spell, when you are tuckered out butting around and around trying to find out something there ain’t no way to find out. And he says: