ill time to go back home.

It was nearly sun-down when they reached the gate of the little hut
on the mountain.

"We must do this often, Archie B.," said the Bishop, as the children
went in, tired and hungry, leaving him and Archie B. at the gate.
"I've never seed the little 'uns have sech a time, an' it mighty nigh
made me young ag'in."

All afternoon Archie B. had been thinking. All day he had felt the
lumpy, solid thing in the innermost depths of his jeans pocket, which
told him one hundred dollars in gold lay there, and that it would
need an explanation when he reached home or he was in for the worst
whipping he ever had. Knowing this, he had not been thinking all the
afternoon for nothing. The old man bade him good-night, but still
Archie B. lingered, hesitated, hung around the gate.

"Won't you come in, Archie B.?"

"No-o--thank you, Bishop, but I'd--I'd like to, really tho', jes' to
git a little spirt'ul g'idance"--a phrase he had heard his father use
so often.

"Why, what's the matter, Archie B.?"

Archie B. rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm--I'm--thinkin' of
j'inin' the church, Bishop."

"Bless yo' h'art--that's right. I know'd you'd quit yo' mischeev'us
ways an' come in--an' I honor you fur it, Archie B.--praise the
Lord!"

Archie B. still stood pensive and sobered:

"But a thing happened to-day, Bishop, an' it's worryin' me very much.
It makes me think, perhaps--I--ain't--ain't worthy of--the bestowal
of--the grace--you know, the kind I heard you speak of?"

"Tell me, Archie B., lad--an' I'll try to enlighten you in my po'
way."

"Well, now; it's this--jes' suppose you wus goin' along now--say to
school, an' seed a dorg, say his name was Bonaparte, wantin' to eat
up a little monkey; an' a lot of fellers, say like Jud Carpenter an'
Billy Buch, a-bettin' he cu'd do it in ten minutes an' a-sickin' him
on the po' little monkey--this big savage dorg. An' suppose now you
feel sorry for the monkey an' somethin'--you can't tell what--but
somethin' mighty plain tells you the Lord wus on the monkey's
side--so plain you cu'd read it--like it told David--an' the dorg
wus as mean an' bostful as Goliath wus--"

"Archie B., my son, I'd a been fur the monkey, I sho' would," said
the Bishop impressively.

Archie B. smiled: "Bishop, you've called my hand--I _wus_ for that
monkey."

The old man smiled approvingly: "Good--good--Archie B."

"Now, what happened? I'm mighty inter'sted--oh, that is good. I'm