the mill, and we had a real speret'al tussel. I argufied my case in such
a way that she couldn't git round it, and I proved to her that I was the
driest and crookedest old stick that ever the devil twisted out o' shape
when it was a-growin'. On a suddent she turned the argerment agin me in
a way that has stumped me ever since. 'You are right, Mr. Growther,' she
said, 'it was the devil and not the Lord that twisted you out of shape.
Now who's the stronger,' she says, 'and who's goin' to have his own way
in the end? Suppose you are very crooked, won't the Lord get all the
more glory in making you straight, and won't his victory be all the
greater over the evil one?' Says I, 'Mrs. Arnot, that's puttin' my case
in a new light. If I should be straightened out, it would be the
awfulest set-back Old Nick ever had; and if such a thing should happen
he'd never feel sure of any one after that.' Then she turned on me
kinder sharp, and says she, 'What right have you to say that God is
allers lookin' round for easy work? What would you think of a doctor who
would take only slight cases, and have nothing to do with people who
were gittin' dangerous-like? Isn't Jesus Christ the great physician, and
don't your common-sense tell you that he is jist as able to cure you as
a little child?'
"I declare I was stumped. Like that ill-mannered cuss in the Scripter
who thought his old clothes good enough for the weddin', I was
speechless.
"But I got a worse knock down than that. Says she, 'Mr. Growther, I will
not dispute all the hard things you have said of yourself (you see I had
beat her on that line of argerment); I won't dispute all that you say
(and I felt a little sot up agin, for I didn't know what she was
a-drivin' at), but,' says she, 'I think you've got some natural
feelin's. Suppose you had a little son, and while he was out in the
street a wicked man should carry him off and treat him so cruelly that,
instead of growin' to be strong and fine-lookin', he should become a
puny, deformed little critter. Suppose at last you should hear where he
was, and that he was longin' to escape from the cruel bands of his harsh
master, who kept on a-treatin' of him worse and worse, would you, his
father, go and coolly look at him and say, "If you was only a handsome
boy, with a strong mind in a strong body, I'd deliver you out of this
tyrant's clutches and take you back to be my son again; but since you
are a poor, weak, deformed little critter, that can never do much, or be
much, I'll leave you here to be abused and tormented as before"--is
that what you would do, Mr. Growther?'
"Well, she spoke it all so earnest and real-like that I got off my
guard, and I jist riz right up from my cheer, and I got hold of my heavy
old cane there, and it seemed as if my hair stood right up on end, I was
that mad at the old curmudgeon that had my boy, and I half shouts, 'No!
that ain't what I'd do, I'd go for that cuss that stole my boy, and for
every blow he'd given the little chap, I'd give him a hundred.'
"'But what would you do with the poor little boy?' she asks. At that I
began to choke, my feelin's was so stirred up, and moppin' my eyes, I
said, 'Poor little chap, all beaten and abused out o' shape! What would
I do with him? Why, I couldn't do 'nuff for him in tryn' to make him
forget all the hard times he'd had.' Then says she, 'You would twit the
child with bein' weak, puny, and deformed, would you?' I was now
hobblin' up and down the room in a great state of excitement, and says
I, 'Mrs. Arnot, mean a man as I am, I wouldn't treat any human critter
so, let alone my own flesh and blood, that had been so abused that it
makes my heart ache to think on't.'