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disquisitions upon torts, include within that term those inscrutable injuries that no human intelligence can foresee; for instance, floods, earthquakes and tornadoes.”
    â€œNow, that is very stupid in the writers on the law,” replied Abner; “I should call such injuries acts of the devil. It would not occur to me to believe that God would use the agency of the elements in order to injure the innocent.”
    â€œWell,” said Randolph, “the writers upon the law have not been theologians, although Mr. Greenleaf was devout, and Chitty with a proper reverence, and my lords Coke and Blackstone and SirMatthew Hale in respectable submission to the established church. They have grouped and catalogued injuries with delicate and nice distinctions with respect to their being actionable at law, and they found certain injuries to be acts of God, but I do not read that they found any injury to be an act of the devil. The law does not recognize the sovereignty and dominion of the devil.”
    â€œThen,” replied Abner, “with great fitness is the law represented blindfold. I have not entered any jurisdiction where his writs have failed to run.”
    There was a smile about the door that would have broken into laughter but for the dead man inside.
    Randolph blustered, consulted his snuffbox, and turned the conversation into a neighboring channel.
    â€œDo you think, Abner,” he said, “that this old showman will give up his dangerous practice as he promised me?”
    â€œYes,” replied Abner, “he will give it up, but not because he promised you.”
    And he walked away to my father, took him by the arm, and led him aside.
    â€œRufus,” he said, “I have learned something. Your receipt is valid.”
    â€œOf course it is valid,” replied my father; “it is in Blackford’s hand.”
    â€œWell,” said Abner, “he cannot come back to deny it, and I will not be a witness for him.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, Abner?” my father said. “You say that Blackford did not write this letter, and now you say that it is valid.”
    â€œI mean,” replied Abner, “that when the one entitled to a debt receives it, that is enough.”
    Then he walked away into the crowd, his head lifted and his fingers locked behind his massive back.
    The County Fair closed that evening in much gossip and many idle comments on Blackford’s end. The chimney corner lawyers, riding out with the homing crowd, vapored upon Mr. Jefferson’s Statute of Descents, and how Blackford’s property would escheat to the state since there was no next of kin, and were met with the information that his lands and his cattle would precisely pay his debts, with an eagle or two beyond for a coffin. And, after the manner of lawyers, were not silenced, but laid down what the law would be if only the facts were agreeable to their premise. And the prophets, sitting in their wagons, assembled their witnesses and established the dates at which they had been prophetically delivered.
    Evening descended, and the fair grounds were mostly deserted. Those who lived at no great distance had moved their live stock with the crowd and had given up their pens and stalls. But my father, who always brought a drove of prize cattle to these fairs, gave orders that we should remain until the morning. The distance home was too great and the roads were filled. My father’s cattle were no less sacred than the bulls of Egypt, and not to be crowded by a wagon wheel or ridden into by a shouting drunkard.
    The night fell. There was no moon, but the earth was not in darkness. The sky was clear and sown with stars like a seeded field. I did not go to bed in the cattle stall filled with clover hay under a handwoven blanket, as I was intended to do. A youngster at a certain age is a sort of jackal and loves nothing in this world so much as to prowl over the ground where a crowd of people has