ered, "but we 've got to have some fresh air and
more light on it," rising as I spoke and reaching for the bolt on the
front door. With a single quick jerk I had it back, and throwing
myself forward, swung the door wide to the open sky, while Joel groaned
again, and the big, rusty hinges thrice groaned at the surprise and
shock of it. But the thing was done.

A flood of warm, sweet sunshine poured over us; a breeze,
wild-rose-and-elder-laden, swept in out of the broad meadow that
stretched from the very doorstep to a distant hill of pines, and
through the air, like a shower in June, fell the notes of soaring,
singing bobolinks.

Joel stood looking out over his farm with the eyes of a stark stranger.
He had never seen it from the front door before. It was a new prospect.

"Let's sit here on the millstone step," I said, bringing the Bible out
into the fresh air, "and I 'll read you something you never heard
before," and I read,--laying the emphasis so as to render a new thing
of the old story,--"In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And
God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the
darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called
night.

"And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Starting each new phase of the tale with "And God said," and bringing
it to a close with "And God saw that it was good," I read on through
the seas and dry land, the sun and stars, and all living things, to man
and woman--"male and female created he them"--and in his own likeness,
blessing them and crowning the blessing with saying, "Be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth and _subdue_ it,"--farm for a living;
rounding out the whole marvelous story with the sweet refrain: "And God
saw _everything_ that he had made, and behold it was _very_ good.

"And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

"_Thus_, Joel," I concluded, glancing at him as with opened eyes he
looked out for the first time over his new meadow,--"_thus_, according
to my belief, and not as you have been reading it, were the heavens and
the earth finished and all the host of them."

He took the old book in his lap and sat silent with me for a while on
the step. Then he said:--

"Nobo