“Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of. You might do this, or you might do that, according to what you was told, or, even more, according to what was denied you. For poor honest people, like Firm and me, to deal with such a case is out of knowledge. For us it is—go by the will of the Lord, and dead agin your own desires.”
“But, dear Uncle Sam,” I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his own tenterhooks, “you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature for daring to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your own conduct, if you are bound to go against your own desire? If you have such a lot of freewill, why must you do what you do not like to do?”
“Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large. The will of the world is upon us as well. And we must have respect for its settlements.”
“Now let me,” I said, with a trembling wish to have every thing right and maidenly. “I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they are so simple when it is too late—let me ask you one or two questions, Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you a crooked answer is impossible.”
“Business is business,” the Sawyer said. “My dear, I contract accordingly.”
“Very well. Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have done with me? Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who have never even heard of me.”
“Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so natural.”
“In the next place, what does your grandson wish?”
“To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till death do you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs.”
“And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish? You say we all have so much free-will.”