Tregenza say of it?"
"Well, faither, he'm contrary to sich things, as I tawld 'e, Mister Jan.
Faither said Joe'd better by a deal keep his money in his purse; but he let
me have the picksher, an' 'tis nailed up in a lil frame, what Joe made, at
home in the parlor."
She stopped a moment and sighed, then spoke again.
"Faither's a wonnerful God-fearin' man, sure 'nough."
"Is he a God-loving man too, Joan?"
"I dunnaw. That ed'n 'sackly the same, I s'pose?"
"As different as fear and love. I'm not an atom frightened of God
myself--no more than I am of you."
"Lard! Mister Jan."
"Why should I be? You are not frightened of the air you breathe--yet that
is part of God; you are not frightened of the gold gorse or the blue
sky--yet they are part of God too. God made you--you are part of God--a
deliberate manifestation of Him. What's the use of being frightened? You
and I can only know God by the shapes He takes--by the bluebells and the
ferns and the larks in the sky, and the rabbits and wild things."
His effort to inspire the girl with Nature-worship, though crudely cast in
a fashion most likely to attract her, yet failed just then, and failed
ludicrously. Her mind comprehended barely enough to accept his idea in a
sense suggested by her acquaintance with fable, and when he instanced a
rabbit as an earthly manifestation of the Everlasting, she felt she could
cap the example from her own store of knowledge.
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