"O Lord," said Father Baby, "I confess I am a sinner; we all are. But I
am a provident sinner who makes good use of the increase Thou dost send
through the earth. I do Thee to wit that Antoine Lamarche's crop is
pretty weedy. The lazy dog will have to buy of me, and if I do not skin
him well--But hold on. My blessed Master, I had forgot that Antoine has
a sick child in his house. I will set his garden in order for him.
Perhaps Thou wilt count it to me for righteousness, and let it offset
some of my iniquities."
So when he had finished his own, the friar put his hoe into his
neighbor's patch, and worked until the sweat rolled down his thin
cheeks. Gusts of rain added their moisture. As much light as the world
was to have that day filtered through sheets of vapor. The bluffs
bordering the Okaw could not be seen except as a vague bank of forest;
and as for the lowlands across the great river, they might as well have
had no existence.
It grew upon Father Baby's observation that the Mississippi had never
looked so threatening.
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