IV.
MR. BLAKE AGREES WITH THE WALKING-STICK.
Early on Sunday morning Willie awoke and began to think about Sitles, and
to wish he had money to buy him a broom-machine. And then he thought of
widow Martin. But all his thinking would do no good. Then he thought of
what Old Ebony had said, and he wished he could know what that text was
that the cane was just going to quote.
"It was," said Willie, "the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the
fourteenth chapter of something. I'll see."
So he began with the beginning of the Bible, and looked first at Genesis
xiv. 12, 13. But it was about the time when Abraham had heard of the
capture of Lot and mustered his army to recapture him. He thought a
minute.
"That can't be what it is," said Willie, "I'll look at Exodus."
In Exodus it was about standing still at the Red Sea and waiting for
God's salvation. It might mean that God would deliver the poor. But that
was not just what the cane was talking about. It was about giving gifts
to friends. So he went on to Leviticus. But it was about the
wave-offering, and the sin-offering, and the burnt-offering. That was not
it, and so he went from book to book until he had reached the twelfth and
thirteenth verses of the fourteenth chapter of the book of Judges.
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