What is it that I'm slavin' myself over this fine mornin'?
Why, rakin' this yard! And what am I rakin'?
Why, dead leaves from last fall, and straws and sticks and pieces of seaweed and such that have blowed in durin' the winter.

And what blowed 'em in?
Why, the wind, sartin! And whose wind was it?
The Almighty's, that's whose! Now then! if the Almighty didn't intend to have dead leaves around why did he put trees for 'em to fall off of?
If he didn't want straws and seaweed and truck around why did He send them everlastin' no'theasters last November?
Did that idea ever strike you ?" "I don't know that it ever did, exactly in that way." "No.

Well, that's 'cause you ain't reasoned it out, same as I have.
You've got the same trouble that most folks have, you don't reason things out.

Now, let's look at it straight in the face." Lute let go of the rake altogether and used both hands to illustrate his point.

"That finger there, we'll say, is me, rakin' and rakin' hard as ever I can.
And that fist there is the Almighty, not meanin' anything irreverent.
I rake, same as I'm doin' this mornin'.