n ripples.

"I don't know," answered his companion shortly.

"But who d'ye s'pose made it?"

"I suppose it was Sandy McQuarry, when he put the mill here."

"How did he do it?"

"He dammed the creek."

"Oh, and who made the crick?"

"It was always there."

"Yes, but who made it in the first place?"

No answer.

"Was it God?"

"I--I suppose so."

"Oh, ain't you dead sure? Who could it 'a' been, then?"

Still silence.

"Was it God?"

"Yes."

Tim looked surprised. "Miss Scott, she says God made everything, but
she never knew ole Mother Cummins, or she'd never 'a' said that. She
don't know much, though," he added, with a sigh for the narrow
experience of his Sunday-school teacher. "You don't s'pose God would
'a' let anybody like ole Mother Cummins live if He bothered much about
things, do you?"

The man flashed a look of sympathy into the child's old, pinched face.
This boy's problem was his. How could the Almighty care, and yet
permit such things to be? John McIntyre had answered that question for
himself by saying that the Almighty--if there were an Almighty--did not
care; but when he looked into the child's hungry, questioning eyes his
unbelief seemed inadequate.

"D'ye think He would?" persisted the boy.

John McIntyre hesitated. For the first time he recoiled from
expressing his contempt for God and humanity. "Most people are bad,
but----" He paused. Then, to his own surprise, he added: "There's
your new father and mother, you know."

"Yes, God must 'a' made them, all right," agreed Tim emphatically.
"Mebby he couldn't help folks like ole Mis' Cummins an' Spectacle John.
Ole Hughie Cameron said Spectacle John was a son of Belial, an' I bet
that's right, 'cause he won't let us go near daddy's mill. Say"--he
looked up, and put the question in an awed whisper--"are you a son o'
Belial, too? Silas Long said you was."

There was no reply to this, and the boy sat regarding John McIntyre
thoughtfully. He was beginning to fear he was not so gloriously wicked
as the village believed.

"Say, you ain't a--a infiddle, after all, are you?" he added, in a
disappointed tone. And John McIntyre did not deny the charge.

Little by little, the man was inveigled into conversation. At first,
his few remarks were merely about the engine or the lumber, as the boy
followed him on his rounds through the mill. But the field gradually
widened, until one night he was led to speak of his past--those