“Finally, he bethought him of old Mump’s gun, and he run round and got it, and poked it through a crack of the chamber-door, and fired off bang! and shot him dead, jest as Mis’ Moss and the girls was comin’ into the kitchen-door.
“Wal, there was, to be sure, the ‘bomination o’ desolation when they come in and found every thing all up in a heap and broke to pieces, and the old critter a-kickin’ and bleedin’ all over the carpet, and Bill as pale as his shirt-tail on the chamber-stairs. They had an awful mess on’t; and there was the two bulls dead and to be took care uv.
“‘Wal, Bill,” said his father, “‘I hope yer satisfied now. All that comes o’ stayin’ to home from meetin’, and keepin’ temporal things in yer head all day Sunday. You’ve lost your own bull, you’ve got Ike’s to pay for, and ye ‘ll have the laugh on yer all round the country.’
“‘I expect, father, we ken corn the meat,’ says Mis’ Moss, ‘and maybe the hide ‘ll sell for something,’ sez she; for she felt kind o’ tender for Bill, and didn’t want to bear down too hard on him.
“Wal, the story got round, and everybody was a-throwin’ it up at Bill; and Delily, in partikelar, hectored him about it till he wished the bulls had been in the Red Sea afore he’d ever seen one on ‘em. Wal, it really driv him out o’ town, and he went off out West to settle, and nobody missed him much; and Ike he married Delily, and they grew from better to better, till now they own jest about as pretty a farm as there is round. Yer remember that white house with green blinds, that we passed when we was goin’ to the trout-brook? Wal, that ‘ere’s the one.”
HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL
“LOOK here, boys,” said Sam, “don’t you want to go with me up to the Devil’s Den this arternoon?”
“Where is the Devil’s Den,” said I, with a little awe.
“Wal, it’s a longer tramp than I’ve ever took ye. It’s clear up past the pickerel pond, and beyond old Skunk John’s pasture-lot. It’s a ‘mazin’ good place for raspberries; shouldn’t wonder if we should get two, three quarts there. Great rocks there higher’n yer head; kinder solemn, ‘tis.”
This was a delightful and seductive account, and we arranged for a walk that very afternoon.
In almost every New-England village the personality of Satan has been acknowledged by calling by his name some particular rock or cave, or other natural object whose singularity would seem to suggest a more than mortal occupancy. “The Devil’s Punchbowl,” “The Devil’s Wash-bowl,” “The Devil’s Kettle,” “The Devil’s Pulpit,” and “The Devil’s Den,” have been designations that marked places or objects of some striking natural peculiarity. Often these are found in the midst of the most beautiful and romantic scenery, and the sinister name seems to have no effect in lessening its attractions. To me, the very idea of going to the Devil’s Den was full of a pleasing horror. When a boy, I always lived in the shadowy edge of that line which divides spirit land from mortal life, and it was my delight to walk among its half lights and shadows. The old graveyard where, side by side, mouldered the remains of Indian sachems and the ancients of English blood, was my favorite haunt. I loved to sit on the graves while the evening mists arose from them, and to fancy cloudy forms waving and beckoning. To me, this spirit land was my only refuge from the dry details of a hard, prosaic life. The schoolroom – with its hard seats rudely fashioned from slabs of rough wood, with its clumsy desks, hacked and ink-stained, with its unintelligible textbooks and its unsympathetic teacher – was to me a prison out of whose weary windows I watched the pomp and glory of nature, – the free birds singing, the clouds sailing, the trees waving and whispering, – and longed, as earnestly as ever did the Psalmist, to flee far away, and wander in the wilderness.
Hence, no joy of after life – nothing that the world has now to give – can equal that joyous sense of freedom and full possession which came over me on Saturday afternoons, when I started off on a tramp with the world all before me, – the mighty, unexplored world of mysteries and possibilities, bounded only by the horizon. Ignorant alike of all science, neither botanist nor naturalist, I was studying at firsthand all that lore out of which science is made. Every plant and flower had a familiar face to me, and said something to my imagination. I knew where each was to be found, its time of coming and going, and met them year after year as returning friends.
So it was with joyous freedom that we boys ram bled off with Sam this afternoon, intent to find the Devil’s Den. It was a ledge of granite rocks rising in the midst of a grove of pines and white birches. The ground was yellow and slippery with the fallen needles of the pines of other days, and the glistening white stems of the birches shone through the shadows like ivory pillars. Underneath the great granite ledges, all sorts of roots and plants grappled and kept foothold; and whole armies of wild raspberries matured their fruit, rounder and juicier for growing in the shade.
In one place yawned a great rift, or cavern, as if the rocks had been violently twisted and wrenched apart, and a mighty bowlder lodging in the rift had roofed it over, making a cavern of most seductive darkness and depth. This was the Devil’s Den; and after we had picked our pail full of berries, we sat down there to rest.
“Sam, do you suppose the Devil ever was here?” said I. “What do they call this his den for?”
“Massy, child! that ‘are was in old witch times. There used to be witch meetins’ held here, and awful doins’; they used to have witch sabba’ days and witch sacraments, and sell their souls to the old boy.”
“What should they want to do that for?”
“Wal, sure enough; what was it for? I can’t make out that the Devil ever gin ‘em any thing, any on ‘em. They warn’t no richer, nor didn’t get no more’n this world than the rest; and they was took and hung; and then ef they went to torment after that, they hed a pretty bad bargain on’t, I say.”
“Well, people don’t do such things any more, do they?” said I.
“No,” said Sam. “Since the gret fuss and row-de-dow about it, it’s kind o’ died out; but there’s those, I s’pose, that hez dealins’ with the old boy. Folks du say that old Ketury was a witch, and that, ef’t ben in old times, she’d a hed her neck stretched; but she lived and died in peace.”
“But do you think,” said I, now proposing the question that lay nearest my heart, “that the Devil can hurt us?”
“That depends consid’able on how you take him,” said Sam. “Ye see, come to a straight out-an’-out fight with him, he ‘ll git the better on yer.”
“But,” said I, “Christian did fight Apollyon, and got him down too.”
I had no more doubt in those days that this was an historic fact than I had of the existence of Romulus and Remus and the wolf.
“Wal, that ‘ere warn’t jest like real things: they say that ‘ere’s an allegory. But I ‘ll tell ye how old Sarah Bunganuck fit the Devil, when he ‘peared to her. Ye see, old Sarah she was one of the converted Injuns, and a good old critter she was too; worked hard, and got her livin’ honest. She made baskets, and she made brooms, and she used to pick young wintergreen and tie it up in bunches, and dig sassafras and ginsing to make beer; and she got her a little bit o’ land, right alongside o’ Old Black Hoss John’s white-birch wood-lot.
“Now, I’ve heerd some o’ these ‘ere modern ministers that come down from Cambridge college, and are larnt about every thing in creation, they say there ain’t no devil, and the reason on’t is, ‘cause there can’t be none. These ‘ere fellers is so sort o’ green! – they don’t mean no harm, but they don’t know nothin’ about nobody that does. If they’d ha’ known old Black Hoss John, they’d ha’ been putty sure there was a devil. He was jest the crossest, ugliest critter that ever ye see, and he was ugly jest for the sake o’ ugliness. He couldn’t bear to let the boys pick huckleberries in his paster lots, when he didn’t pick ‘em himself; and he was allers jawin’ me ‘cause I would go trout-fishin’ in one o’ his pasters. Jest ez if the trout that swims warn’t, the Lord’s, and jest ez much mine as his. He grudged every critter every thing; and if he’d ha’ hed his will and way, every bird would ha’ fell down dead that picked up a worm on his grounds. He was jest as nippin’ as a black frost. Old Black Hoss didn’t git drunk in a regerlar way, like Uncle Eph and Toddy Whitney, and the rest o’ them boys. But he jest sot at home, a-soakin’ on cider, till he was crosser’n a bear with a sore head. Old Black Hoss hed a special spite agin old Sarah. He said she was an old witch and an old thief, and that she stole things off’n his grounds, when everybody knew that she was a regerlar church-member, and as decent an old critter as there was goin’. As to her stealin’, she didn’t do nothin’ but pick huckleberries and grapes, and git chesnuts and wannuts, and butternuts, and them ‘ere wild things that’s the Lord’s, grow on whose land they will, and is free to all. I’ve hearn ‘em tell that, over in the old country, the poor was kept under so, that they couldn’t shoot a bird, nor ketch a fish, nor gather no nuts, nor do nothin’ to keep from starvin’, ‘cause the quality folks they thought they owned every thing, ’way-down to the middle of the earth and clear up to the stars. We never hed no sech doin’s this side of the water, thank the Lord! We’ve allers been free to have the chesnuts and the wannuts and the grapes and the huckleberries and the strawberries, ef we could git ‘em, and ketch fish when and where we was a mind to. Lordy massy! your grandthur’s old Cesar, he used to call the pond his pork-pot. He’d jest go down and throw in a line and ketch his dinner. Wal, Old Black Hoss he know’d the law was so, and he couldn’t do nothin’ agin her by law; but he sarved her out every mean trick he could think of. He used to go and stan’ and lean over her garden-gate and jaw at her an hour at a time; but old Sarah she had the Injun in her; she didn’t run to talk much: she used to jest keep on with her weedin and her work, jest’s if he warn’t there, and that made Old Black Hoss madder’n ever; and he thought he’d try and frighten her off’n the ground, by makin’ on her believe he was the Devil. So one time, when he’d been killin’ a beef critter, they took off the skin with the horns and all on; and Old Black Hoss he says to Toddy and Eph and Loker, ‘You jest come up tonight, and see how I ‘ll frighten old Sarah Bunganuck.’
“Wal, Toddy and Eph and Loker, they hedn’t no better to do, and they thought they’d jest go round and see. Ye see ‘twas a moonlight night, and old Sarah – she was an industrious critter – she was cuttin’ white-birch brush for brooms in the paster-lot.
“Wal, Old Black Hoss he wrapped the critter’s skin round him, with the horns on his head, and come and stood by the fence, and begun to roar and make a noise.
“Old Sarah she kept right on with her work, cuttin’ her brush and pilin’ on’t up, and jest let him roar. Wal, Old Black Hoss felt putty foolish, ’specially ez the fellers were waitin’ to see how she took it. So he calls out in a grum voice, —
“‘Woman, don’t yer know who I be?”
“‘No,’ says she quite quiet, ‘I don’t know who yer be.’
“‘Wal, I’m the Devil,’ sez he.
“‘Ye be?’ says old Sarah. ‘Poor old critter, how I pity ye!’ and she never gin him another word, but jest bundled up her broom-stuff, and took it on her back and walked off, and Old Black Hoss he stood there mighty foolish with his skin and horns; and so he had the laugh agin him, ‘cause Eph and Loker they went and told the story down to the tavern, and he felt awful cheap to think old Sarah had got the upper hands on him.
“Wal, ye see, boys, that ‘ere’s jest the way to fight the Devil. Jest keep straight on with what ye’re doin’, and don’t ye mind him, and he can’t do nothin’ to ye.”
LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’
WE were in disgrace, we boys; and the reason of it was this: we had laughed out in meeting-time! To be sure, the occasion was a trying one, even to more disciplined nerves. Parson Lothrop had exchanged pulpits with Parson Summeral, of North Wearem. Now, Parson Summeral was a man in the very outset likely to provoke the risibles of unspiritualized juveniles. He was a thin, wiry, frisky little man, in a powdered white wig, black tights, and silk stockings, with bright knee-buckles and shoe-buckles; with round, dark, snapping eyes; and a curious, high, cracked, squeaking voice, the very first tones of which made all the children stare and giggle. The news that Parson Summeral was going to preach in our village spread abroad among us as a prelude to something funny. It had a flavor like the charm of circus-acting; and, on the Sunday morning of our story, we went to the house of God in a very hilarious state, all ready to set off in a laugh on the slightest provocation.
The occasion was not long wanting. Parson Lo-throp had a favorite dog yclept Trip, whose behavior in meeting was notoriously far from that edifying pattern which befits a minister’s dog on Sundays. Trip was a nervous dog, and a dog that never could be taught to conceal his emotions or to respect conventionalities. If any thing about the performance in the singers’ seat did not please him, he was apt to express himself in a lugubrious howl. If the sermon was longer than suited him, he would gape with such a loud creak of his jaws as would arouse everybody’s attention. If the flies disturbed his afternoon’s nap, he would give sudden snarls or snaps; or, if anything troubled his dreams, he would bark out in his sleep in a manner not only to dispel his own slumbers, but those of certain worthy deacons and old ladies, whose sanctuary repose was thereby sorely broken and troubled. For all these reasons, Madame Lo-throp had been forced, as a general thing, to deny Trip the usual sanctuary privileges of good family dogs in that age, and shut him up on Sundays to private meditation. Trip, of course, was only the more set on attendance, and would hide behind doors, jump out of windows, sneak through by-ways and alleys, and lie hid till the second bell had done tolling, when suddenly he would appear in the broad aisle, innocent and happy, and take his seat as composedly as any member of the congregation.
Imagine us youngsters on the qui vive with excitement at seeing Parson Summeral frisk up into the pulpit with all the vivacity of a black grasshopper. We looked at each other, and giggled very cautiously, with due respect to Aunt Lois’s sharp observation.
At first, there was only a mild, quiet simmering of giggle, compressed decorously within the bounds of propriety; and we pursed our muscles up with stringent resolution, whenever we caught the apprehensive eye of our elders.
But when, directly after the closing notes of the tolling second bell, Master Trip walked gravely up the front aisle, and, seating himself squarely in front of the pulpit, raised his nose with a critical air toward the scene of the forthcoming performance, it was too much for us: the repression was almost convulsive. Trip wore an alert, attentive air, befitting a sound, orthodox dog, who smells a possible heresy, and deems it his duty to watch the performances narrowly.
Evidently he felt called upon to see who and what were to occupy that pulpit in his master’s absence.
Up rose Parson Summeral; and up went Trip’s nose, vibrating with intense attention.
The parson began in his high-cracked voice to intone the hymn, —
“Sing to the Lord aloud,”
when Trip broke into a dismal howl.
The parson went on to give directions to the deacon, in the same voice in which he had been reading, so that the whole effect of the performance was somewhat as follows: —
“‘Sing to the Lord aloud.’
“(Please to turn out that dog), —
“‘And make a joyful noise.,”
The dog was turned out, and the choir did their best to make a joyful noise; but we boys were upset for the day, delivered over to the temptations of Satan, and plunged in waves and billows of hysterical giggle, from which neither winks nor frowns from Aunt Lois, nor the awful fear of the tithing-man, nor the comforting bits of fennel and orange-peel passed us by grandmother, could recover us.
Everybody felt, to be sure, that here was a trial that called for some indulgence. Hard faces, even among the stoniest saints, betrayed a transient quiver of the risible muscles; old ladies put up their fans; youths and maidens in the singers’ seat laughed outright; and, for the moment, a general snicker among the children was pardoned. But I was one of that luckless kind, whose nerves, once set in vibration, could not be composed. When the reign of gravity and decorum had returned, Harry and I sat by each other, shaking with suppressed laughter. Every thing in the subsequent exercises took a funny turn; and in the long prayer, when everybody else was still and decorous, the whole scene came over me with such overpowering force, that I exploded with laughter, and had to be taken out of meeting and marched home by Aunt Lois, as a convicted criminal. What especially moved her indignation was, that, the more she rebuked and upbraided, the more I laughed, till the tears rolled down my cheeks; which Aunt Lois construed into wilful disrespect to her authority, and resented accordingly.
By Sunday evening, as we gathered around the fire, the re-action from undue gayety to sobriety had taken place; and we were in a pensive and penitent state. Grandmother was gracious and forgiving; but Aunt Lois still preserved that frosty air of reprobation which she held to be a salutary means of quickening our consciences for the future. It was, therefore, with unusual delight that we saw our old friend Sam come in, and sit himself quietly down on the block in the chimney corner. With Sam we felt assured of indulgence and patronage; for, though always rigidly moral and instructive in his turn of mind, he had that fellow-feeling for transgressors which is characteristic of the loose-jointed, easy-going style of his individuality.
“Lordy massy, boys – yis,” said Sam virtuously, in view of some of Aunt Lois’s thrusts, “ye ought never to laugh nor cut up in meetin’; that ‘are’s so: but then there is times when the best on us gets took down. We gets took unawares, ye see, – even ministers does. Yis, natur’ will git the upper hand afore they know it.”
“Why, Sam, ministers don’t ever laugh in meetin’! do they?”
We put the question with wide eyes. Such a supposition bordered on profanity, we thought: it was approaching the sin of Uzzah, who unwarily touched the ark of the Lord.
“Laws, yes. Why, heven’t you never heard how there was a council held to try Parson Morrel for laughin’ out in prayer-time?”
“Laughing in prayer-time!” we both repeated, with uplifted hands and eyes.
My grandfather’s mild face became luminous with a suppressed smile, which brightened it as the moon does a cloud; but he said nothing.
“Yes, yes,” said my grandmother, “that affair did make a dreadful scandal in the time on’t! But Parson Morrel was a good man; and I’m glad the council wasn’t hard on him.”
“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, “after all, it was more Ike Babbit’s fault than ‘twas anybody’s. Ye see, Ike he was allers for gettin’ what he could out o’ the town; and he would feed his sheep on the meetin’-house green. Somehow or other, Ike’s fences allers contrived to give out, come Sunday, and up would come his sheep; and Ike was too pious to drive ‘em back Sunday, and so there they was. He was talked to enough about it: ‘cause, ye see, to hev sheep and lambs a ba-a-in’ and a blatin’ all prayer and sermon time wa’n’t the thing. ‘Member that ‘are old meet-in’-house up to the North End, down under Blueberry Hill, the land sort o’ sloped down, so as a body hed to come into the meetin’-house steppin’ down instead o’ up.
“Fact was, they said ‘twas put there ‘cause the land wa’n’t good for nothin’ else; and the folks thought puttin’ a meetin’-house on’t would be a clear savin’. But Parson Morrel he didn’t like it, and was free to tell ‘em his mind on’t, – that ‘twas like bringin’ the lame and the blind to the Lord’s sarvice; but there ‘twas.
“There wa’n’t a better minister, nor no one more set by in all the State, than Parson Morrel. His doctrines was right up and down, good and sharp; and he give saints and sinners their meat in due season; and for consolin’ and comfortin’ widders and orphans, Parson Morrel hedn’t his match. The women sot lots by him; and he was allus’ ready to take tea round, and make things pleasant and comfortable; and he hed a good story for every one, and a word for the children, and maybe an apple or a cookey in his pocket for ‘em. Wal, you know there an’t no pleasin’ everybody; and ef Gabriel himself, right down out o’ heaven, was to come and be a minister, I expect there’d be a pickin’ at his wings, and sort o’ fault-findin’. Now, Aunt Jerushy Scran and Aunt Polly Hokun they sed Parson Morrel wa’n’t solemn enough. Ye see, there’s them that thinks that a minister ought to be jest like the town hearse, so that ye think of death, judgment, and eternity, and nothin’ else, when ye see him round; and ef they see a man rosy and chipper, and hevin’ a pretty nice, sociable sort of a time, why they say he an’t spiritooal minded. But, in my times, I’ve seen ministers the most awakenin’ kind in the pulpit that was the liveliest when they was out on’t. There is a time to laugh, Scriptur’ says; tho’ some folks never seem to remember that ‘are.”
“But, Sam, how came you to say it was Ike Babbit’s fault? What was it about the sheep?”
“Oh, wal, yis! I’m a comin’ to that ‘are. It was all about them sheep. I expect they was the instrument the Devil sot to work to tempt Parson Morrel to laugh in prayer-time.
“Ye see, there was old Dick, Ike’s bell-wether, was the fightin’est old crittur that ever yer see. Why, Dick would butt at his own shadder; and everybody said it was a shame the old crittur should be left to run loose, ‘cause he run at the children, and scared the women half out their wits. Wal, I used to live out in that parish in them days. And Lem Sudoc and I used to go out sparkin’ Sunday nights, to see the Larkin gals; and we had to go right ‘cross the lot where Dick was: so we used to go and stand at the fence, and call. And Dick would see us, and put down his head, and run at us full chisel, and come bunt agin the fence; and then I’d ketch him by the horns, and hold him while Lem run and got over the fence t’other side the lot; and then I’d let go: and Lem would holler, and shake a stick at him, and away he’d go full butt at Lem; and Lem would ketch his horns, and hold him till I came over, – that was the way we managed Dick; but, I tell you, ef he come sudden up behind a fellow, he’d give him a butt in the small of his back that would make him run on all fours one while. He was a great rogue, – Dick was. Wal, that summer, I remember they hed old Deacon Titkins for tithing-man; and I tell you he give it to the boys lively. There wa’n’t no sleepin’ nor no playin’; for the deacon hed eyes like a gimblet, and he was quick as a cat, and the youngsters hed to look out for themselves. It did really seem as if the deacon was like them four beasts in the Revelations that was full o’ eyes behind and before; for which ever way he was standin’, if you gave only a wink, he was down on you, and hit you a tap with his stick. I know once Lem Sudoc jist wrote two words in the psalm-book and passed to Kesiah Larkin; and the deacon give him such a tap that Lem grew red as a beet, and vowed he’d be up with him some day for that.
“Well, Lordy Massy, folks that is so chipper and high steppin’ has to hev their come downs; and the deacon he hed to hev his.
“That ‘are Sunday, – I ‘member it now jest as well as if ‘twas yesterday, – the parson he give us his gre’t sermon, reconcilin’ decrees and free agency: everybody said that ‘are sermon was a masterpiece. He preached it up to Cambridge at Commencement, that year. Wal, it so happened it was one o’ them bilin’ hot days that come in August, when you can fairly hear the huckleberries a sizzlin’, and cookin’ on the bushes, and the locust keeps a gratin’ like a red-hot saw. Wal, such times, decrees or no decrees, the best on us will get sleepy. The old meetin’-house stood right down at the foot of a hill that kep’ off all the wind; and the sun blazed away at them gre’t west winders: and there was pretty sleepy times there. Wal, the deacon, he flew round a spell, and woke up the children, and tapped the boys on the head, and kep’ every thing straight as he could, till the sermon was most through, when he railly got most tuckered out; and he took a chair, and he sot down in the door right opposite the minister, and fairly got asleep himself, jest as the minister got up to make the last prayer.
“Wal, Parson Morrel hed a way o’ prayin’ with his eyes open. Folks said it wa’n’t the best way: but it was Parson Morrel’s way, anyhow; and so, as he was prayin’, he couldn’t help seein’ that Deacon Tit-kins was a noddin’ and a bobbin’ out toward the place where old Dick was feedin’ with the sheep, front o’ the meetin’-house door.
“Lem and me we was sittin’ where we could look out; and we jest sees old Dick stop feedin’ and look at the deacon. The deacon hed a little round head as smooth as an apple, with a nice powdered wig on it: and he sot there makin’ bobs and bows; and Dick begun to think it was suthin sort o’ pussonal. Lem and me was sittin’ jest where we could look out and see the hull picter; and Lem was fit to split.
“‘Good, now,’ says he: ‘that crittur ‘ll pay the deacon off lively, pretty soon.’
“The deacon bobbed his head a spell; and old Dick he shook his horns, and stamped at him sort o’ threat-nin’. Finally the deacon he give a great bow, and brought his head right down at him; and old Dick he sot out full tilt and come down on him ker chunk, and knocked him head over heels into the broad aisle: and his wig flew one way and he t’other; and Dick made a lunge at it, as it flew, and carried it off on his horns.
“Wal, you may believe, that broke up the meetin’ for one while: for Parson Morrel laughed out; and all the gals and boys they stomped and roared. And the old deacon he got up and begun rubbin’ his shins, ‘cause he didn’t see the joke on’t.
“‘You don’t orter laugh,’ says he: ‘it’s no laughin’ matter; it’s a solemn thing,’ says he. ‘I might hev been sent into ‘tarnity by that darned crittur,’ says he. Then they all roared and haw-hawed the more, to see the deacon dancin’ round with his little shiny head, so smooth a fly would trip up on’t. ‘I believe, my soul, you’d laugh to see me in my grave,’ says he.
“Wal, the truth on’t was, ‘twas jist one of them bustin’ up times that natur has, when there an’t nothin’ for it but to give in: ‘twas jest like the ice breakin’ up in the Charles River, – it all come at once, and no whoa to’t. Sunday or no Sunday, sin or no sin, the most on ‘em laughed till they cried, and couldn’t help it.
“But the deacon, he went home feelin’ pretty sore about it. Lem Sudoc, he picked up his wig, and handed it to him. Says he, ‘Old Dick was playin’ tithin’-man, wa’n’t he, deacon? Teach you to make allowance for other folks that get sleepy.’
“Then Miss Titkins she went over to Aunt Jerushy Scran’s and Aunt Polly Hokum’s; and they hed a pot o’ tea over it, and ‘greed it was awful of Parson Morrel to set sich an example, and suthin’ hed got to be done about it. Miss Hokum said she allers knew that Parson Morrel hedn’t no spiritooality; and now it hed broke out into open sin, and led all the rest of ‘em into it; and Miss Titkins, she said such a man wa’n’t fit to preach; and Miss Hokum said she couldn’t never hear him agin: and the next Sunday the deacon and his wife they hitched up and driv eight miles over to Parson Lothrop’s and took Aunt Polly on the back seat.
“Wal, the thing growed and growed, till it seemed as if there wa’n’t nothin’ else talked about, ‘cause Aunt Polly and Miss Titkins and Jerushy Scran they didn’t do nothin’ but talk about it; and that sot everybody else a-talkin’.
“Finally, it was ‘greed they must hev a council to settle the hash. So all the wimmen they went to choppin’ mince, and makin’ up pumpkin pies and cranberry tarts, andb’ilin’ doughnuts, – gettin’ ready for the ministers and delegates; ‘cause councils always eats powerful: and they hed quite a stir, like a gineral trainin’. The hosses they was hitched all up and down the stalls, a-stompin’ and switchin’ their tails; and all the wimmen was a-talkin’; and they hed up everybody round for witnesses. And finally Parson Morrel he says, ‘Brethren,’ says he, ‘jest let me tell you the story jest as it happened; and, if you don’t every one of you laugh as hard as I did, why, then, I ‘ll give up.’
“The parson he was a master-hand at settin’ off a story; and, afore he’d done, he got ‘em all in sich a roar they didn’t know where to leave off. Finally, they give sentence that there hedn’t no temptation took him but such as is common to man; but they advised him afterwards allers to pray with his eyes shet; and the parson he confessed he orter ‘a done it, and meant to do better in future: and so they settled it.
“So, boys,” said Sam, who always drew a moral, “ye see, it larns you, you must take care what ye look at, ef ye want to keep from laughin’ in meetin’”.