"I'm smart enough," the moonshiner replied, "not to be ketched a-believin' in things I cain't see, anyhow."
"And so you hain't a-believin' the's anything in the nachur of a hereafter, Buck?"
"Nor no Heaven, nor no Hell," the leader of the Wolfe clan snarled—"nor no God."
His mother began to wring her hands. "Buck, honey, it skeers me to hear you talk that a-way," she moaned. She sat down on the leaves, took the red bandana from her white head, and wiped nervously at her eyes.
"My friend," said Grandpap Singleton, his voice ready to break, "you shorely are mistaken. Didn't ye ever look at the stars at night, and think about the beginnin' of 'em, and the endin' of 'em? Didn't ye ever think 'at they was allus new, as old as they are—heh? Who else but a God A'mighty could ha' made them stars—and the sun, and the moon, and the earth?
"And about the res'rection, Buck. Take mighty nigh it the least thing in the world, a mustard-seed. You put it in the ground, and it rots back to dust jest the same as the human body does; and it comes up in the spring, and without any o' the rot or the blackness—but, to save yore life, Buck Wolfe, you cain't cut a mustard-seed open and find out what makes it grow! I tell ye, the mortal soul has its June as well as the mustard-seed. Buck, any man wi' even hoss sense in his head can argy hisself out of a God ef he only tries. And to them as thinks the' ain't no God, the' ain't none, so far as they're concerned...."
And after a long, still minute: "Here's another proof, Buck. The' never was a nation on earth but what wushipped somethin', whether it was a image, the sun, or the true and livin' Almighty; and ef that hain't the c'lestial spark handed on down and down from old Grandpap Adam, what is it; heh?"
"Fear!" cried Old Buck Wolfe, jutting out his great, bearded jaw. "Most o' good people is good acause they're afeard not to be, and fo' no other reason. Take yore own case, Grandpap Singleton. It hain't been so many years sence you was counted one o' the wickedest, fightin'est men in the country—'Cracker'-Singleton, they called ye then. You never made a change ontel you seed 'at yore best days was done past. You jumped at the hope o' life everlastin' beyant the grave only atter the confidence you had in yoreself was gone. Deny that, ef ye can!"
Old Singleton's countenance became infinitely sad. "I cain't deny it," he muttered brokenly. "I did put it off ontel I'd done turned the crest o' life's journey. And it's acause I put it off fo' so long 'at I'm a-doin' all I can now to build me a pore little shelter in the skies afore I'm called on to go."