nth, and that's tarble good wages for gals, ef so be she gets her
money all right."

"Not a very nice place for a good girl to be, Ben."

"No, it ain't; log roll and timber slide the hull consarn."

"These are queer expressions you've got."

"Yaas, Mr. Corsten, I waynt and promised that there priest as looked
like Mr. Nash, guaiss it must ha' bin his brother, as I wouldn't sweaur
no moer. And now, it keeps my mind workin' mornin' and night, so'st to
know what to spit out when I'm raiul mad and hoppen."

"It must be quite an anxiety to you, Ben."

"Anxiety? It's wearin' my life away. I've got a bit of a rest jest now
on loggin' and lumberin', but them words 'll soon be used up."

"What's to hinder you repeating them, or leaving them out altogether? I
hardly ever feel the need of them."

"It's the way you're broughten up, like your food. What 'ud do you for
dinner, wouldn't be nigh enough for me. Same ways in speakin', they must
be something to fill your talk out."

"Swearing is a poor business, Ben. Our Saviour, when He was on earth,
said, Swear not at all."

"Is that in the Bible, Mr. Corsten?"

"Yes."

"Wall, it may be in some, but t'aint in the one Sylvanus was readin' to
old man Newcome, fer that says in black and white as Jesus cussed the
barrn fig tree, and I'd laike to know what's odds between cussin' and
swearin'. It stands to reason and natur that He wouldn't go and tell
folks not to do things He did Himself; don't it?"

"If you had read the chapters, there are two of them, that tell the
story of the fig tree, you would have found that the disciples called it
cursing when it was only a quiet saying: 'Let no fruit grow on thee
henceforth.' You wouldn't call that cursing, would you?"

"O my, no, that ain't wuth callin' a cuss; they ain't no cuss about it.
Now, fer whole souled, brimstun heeled cuss words, they's----"

"Never mind telling me any. They wouldn't do me any good, and the
clergyman forward there might hear them."

"Do these clergy belong to the Church?"

"They both think they do in different ways, but, strange to say, neither
of them belongs to your Church."

"Wall, I ain't got no quarrl at 'em. I guaiss all the good folks 'll get
to Heaven somehow."

"Amen!" answered the lawyer, and the conversation ended.

There was no visible cart track to the lakes. If Rawdon's whiskey mill,
as Ben called it, was really somewhere among them, there must of
necessity have been a road tapping t