"I—I suppose so."
"Oh, ain't you dead sure? Who could it 'a' been, then?"
Still silence.
"Was it God?"
"Yes."
Tim looked surprised. "Miss Scott, she says God made everything, but she never knew ole Mother Cummins, or she'd never 'a' said that. She don't know much, though," he added, with a sigh for the narrow experience of his Sunday-school teacher. "You don't s'pose God would 'a' let anybody like ole Mother Cummins live if He bothered much about things, do you?"
The man flashed a look of sympathy into the child's old, pinched face. This boy's problem was his. How could the Almighty care, and yet permit such things to be? John McIntyre had answered that question for himself by saying that the Almighty—if there were an Almighty—did not care; but when he looked into the child's hungry, questioning eyes his unbelief seemed inadequate.
"D'ye think He would?" persisted the boy.
John McIntyre hesitated. For the first time he recoiled from expressing his contempt for God and humanity. "Most people are bad, but——" He paused. Then, to his own surprise, he added: "There's your new father and mother, you know."
"Yes, God must 'a' made them, all right," agreed Tim emphatically. "Mebby he couldn't help folks like ole Mis' Cummins an' Spectacle John. Ole Hughie Cameron said Spectacle John was a son of Belial, an' I bet that's right, 'cause he won't let us go near daddy's mill. Say"—he looked up, and put the question in an awed whisper—"are you a son o' Belial, too? Silas Long said you was."