Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/21

 it jest as he did every new thing, and then, as his first move always wuz, he went to investigatin' it himself.

She told him, with no explanation, that if any one prayed in faith their prayers would be answered. It wuz a new idee to Jack, and he wuz agitated over it. He asked his father that night if it wuz so, and told Hamen about the Lamb appearin' to Abraham, and sez Jack:

"If I had faith would my prayers be answered?"

"Yes," sez Hamen, "if you should pray to have it rain down candy, down it would come."

Sez Jack, "Would the lamb appear?" That seemed to be uppermost in his mind.

"Yes," sez Hamen, "the lamb would appear, and mebby a hull drove of 'em."

And then Hamen looked at John and winked, and they both snickered, the fools! Well, Jack see that they wuz makin' fun of him, and he kinder meached away with his mornin' glory blue eyes most shot up. Poor little creeter! little, lonesome, abused creeter!

And when he got over his mortification a little he resolved to investigate for himself. So he went out in the kitchen and built up a fire in the stove, took off all the griddles, and piled on the wood as nigh as Abraham did as he could in a cook stove, accordin' to a picter the Born Baptist had shown him. He got a good hot fire goin', and then he took a book, a costly book that Hamen had gin to Jack, thinkin' that though it wuz pretty old for him now, he would grow up to it. It wuz full of costly engravin's, and wuz the thing that Jack loved best of all his possessions.

So he laid that book on the hot griddles, and then knelt down and prayed for God not to burn it up. He