alkin' about growin'. You
're jest like an old tree that has fell in a damp place an' sen's out a
few shoots on the trunk. It thinks it 's a-growin' too, but them shoots
soon wither, an' the tree rots; that 's what it does."

"But before it rotted, it growed all that was in it to grow, did n't it.
Well, that 's all anybody kin do, tree or human bein'." He paused for a
moment. "I 'ain't got all my growth yit."

"You kin git the rest in the garden of the Lord."

"It ain't good to change soil on some plants too soon. I ain't ready to
be set out." He went on reading:

"'I 'm not so narrow as I was at home. I don't think so many things are
wrong as I used to. It is good to be like other people sometimes, and
not to feel yoreself apart from all the rest of humanity. I am growing
to act more like the people I meet, and so I am--'" the old man's hand
trembled, and he moved the paper nearer to his eyes--"'I--' What 's this
he says? 'I am learning to dance.'"

"There!" his wife shot forth triumphantly. "What did I tell you? Going
to a Congregational church an' learnin' to dance, an' he not a year ago
a preacher of the gospel."

Eliphalet was silent for some time: his eyes looked far out into space.
Then he picked up the paper that had fluttered from his hand, and a
smile flitted over his face.

"Well, I don't know," he said. "Freddie 's young, an' they 's worse
things in the world than dancin'."

"You ain't a-upholdin' him in that too, air you? Well, I never! You 'd
uphold that sinful boy ef he committed murder."

"I ain't a-upholdin' nothin' but what I think is right."

"Right! 'Liphalet Hodges, what air you a-sayin'?"

"Not that I mean to say that dancin' is right, but--"

"There ain't no 'buts' in the Christian religion, 'Liphalet, an' there
ain't no use in yore tryin' to cover up Freddie's faults."

"I ain't a-tryin' to cover nothin' up from God. But sometimes I git to
thinkin' that mebbe we put a good many more bonds on ourselves than the
Lord ever meant us to carry."

"Oh, some of us don't struggle under none too heavy burdens. Some of us
have a way of jest slippin' 'em off of our shoulders like a bag of
flour."

"Meanin' me. Well, mebbe I have tried to make things jest as easy fur
myself as possible, but I 'ain't never tried to make 'em no harder fur
other people. I like to think of the Master as a good gentle friend, an'
mebbe I 'ain't shifted so many o' the burdens He put on me that He won't
let me in