g that if he made the trip it was
money in his pocket, and if he missed fire he couldn't lose a cent. And
by George he sued Jacops for the rhino and got jedgment; and he set up
the coffin in his back parlor and said he 'lowed to take his time, now.
It was always an aggravation to Jacops, the way that miserable old thing
acted. He moved back to Indiany pretty soon--went to Wellsville
--Wellsville was the place the Hogadorns was from. Mighty fine family.
Old Maryland stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry around more mixed
licker, and cuss better than most any man I ever see. His second wife
was the widder Billings--she that was Becky Martin; her dam was deacon
Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest child, Maria, married a missionary and
died in grace--et up by the savages. They et him, too, poor feller
--biled him. It warn't the custom, so they say, but they explained to
friends of his'n that went down there to bring away his things, that
they'd tried missionaries every other way and never could get any good
out of 'em--and so it annoyed all his relations to find out that that
man's life was fooled away just out of a dern'd experiment, so to speak.
But mind you, there ain't anything ever reely lost; everything that
people can't understand and don't see the reason of does good if you only
hold on and give it a fair shake; Prov'dence don't fire no blank
ca'tridges, boys. That there missionary's substance, unbeknowns to
himself, actu'ly converted every last one of them heathens that took a
chance at the barbacue. Nothing ever fetched them but that. Don't tell
me it was an accident that he was biled. There ain't no such a thing as
an accident.

'When my uncle Lem was leaning up agin a scaffolding once, sick, or drunk,
or suthin, an Irishman with a hod full of bricks fell on him out of the
third story and broke the old man's back in two places. People said it
was an accident. Much accident there was about that. He didn't know
what he was there for, but he was there for a good object. If he hadn't
been there the Irishman would have been killed. Nobody can ever make me
believe anything different from that. Uncle Lem's dog was there. Why
didn't the Irishman fall on the dog? Becuz the dog would a seen him a
coming and stood from under. That's the reason the dog warn't appinted.
A dog can't be depended on to carry out a special providence. Mark my
words it was a put-up thing. Accidents don't happen, boys. Uncle Lem