of heaven. Now, you know a camel cannot go through the eye of a needle?"

"Yes, he could if the Almighty so willed it. Betsy Brown, you may be smart, but you will find others jest as smart as you be. Some that have lived longer in the world than you have."

Miss Brown acknowledged that it might be so, and excusing herself took her leave with her sister.

Among bigoted or narrow-minded people, opposition engenders hatred and contempt; and though they may not be able to reason with such they appear to know how to abuse them. The ignorant are most stubborn in their belief. They refuse to be taught, and pretend to despise education and refinement, and their actions seem to prove that they really do prefer darkness, inasmuch as they prefer to herd with those of the same stripe as themselves to being with the educated and refined. No sooner had the Brown girls gone than those who remained appeared united. Whatever Miss Tartar said Mrs. Cramp indorsed and Miss Cutting acquiesced in.

First of all Betsy Brown was no better than she ought to be. In fact, the whole Brown family were getting altogether too liberal in their belief, and they were quite willing to find an easier way to heaven than the straight and narrow way. And some of them acted as though they did not believe there was such a place as hell, where the fire is not quenched and the worm dieth not."

"But," said Mrs. Cramp, and it appeared to give her no little satisfaction, "they will find out their mistake when they git to that place, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

How long such people enjoy talking ill of their neighbors depends upon their endurance and the bitterness of their opposition. Every household where death has entered has an air of loneliness about it.

Everything seems so silent.

The very smoke rising from the

chimney seems to have a significance it never had before.

The room where a corpse has lain has a peculiarly vacant and lonely seeming to those unaccustomed to looking the grim messenger in the face. Especially is that so in the county where the gaunt spectre comes but seldom.

But at an undertaker's in a great city it becomes so a matter of business that those interested do not seem to care. One body is scarcely removed before another is in its place. The hearse is hurried back from the cemetery for the second and third load, and the impatient undertaker can scarcely endure the slow march to the grave; so when they turn homeward, they must, if possible, make up for the time lost on their way to the cemetery. It becomes a business, and the more they can accomplish in a day the more money they make. Like the clown in "Hamlet;" they sing at grave-making, and as "Hamlet" says, truly, "The hand of little appointment has a daintier sense."

When people are buried in the country they appear to be soon forgotten. That is, if we are to judge by the way the country graveyards are neglected. It was a fashion, a century ago, to stake off some out of the way corner of the farm for a burying ground, where the family are laid away one by one and forgotten; often without a stone to mark the limits of their earthly possession. Sometimes a rough chip or flattened boulder would be placed somewhere hear the boundary line. But no name, or record, or letter, could be traced which would enlighten those who passed by. And in a few years friends even could not determine which was the mound or which the declivity above those whom they had once known and loved and honored.

When large families grew up they usually scattered. Some found their way to the towns and cities, and others to the far west. The father of a large family was taken away, and according to the custom of the times his body was placed in a pine coffin, lettered (with brass nails upon the lid) "A. E," whatever it might have been. It was loaded into a common lumber wagon and carted away. Bars were opened and fences were torn down for the procession to pass. Over rough causeways, "through swamps and narrow paths in the woods to a lonely spot where the grave yawned for its own. The ropes were brought out and the body lowered into the hole called a grave. The earth was thrown in and all was done. More than forty years after the wife followed her husband, and those of the children, who had been away and learned the ways of the world, were anxious that their mother should have a respectable coffin, even if it were to be placed

in an out of the way graveyard. A very nice casket was obtained with plate and trimmings, much to the disgust of one of the rough old farmers who remembered the pine coffin of her spouse who preceeded her by nearly half a century; when asked what he thought of the costly casket, he said the family had evidently not forgotten the pine box they put the old man in, which came to pieces in the wagon as they jolted over the stones, and was tied up with birch withes that it might hold the body until it was well covered up in the earth.

"Folks are better than they

buried fifty years ago, it was

"But times are changed," said he. used to be. When old Bundy was winter and they put his body on an ox-sled and in going over an old stone wall, which was covered with snow, they upset the sled and lost the coffin in a snow bank; when they dug it up, the top had come off and Bundy's body had tumbled out. That was a rough winter in these parts; there was not a stone wall or fence to be seen any where about here, and as for travelling, we could not get about for two weeks. All of our sheep were buried up, and some of them were not found for weeks, and when they were found, they were nearly starved to death."

Such were some of the winters our ancesters had to contend with, and even at the present day, terrible snow storms are not unusual, in bleak old New England. And the "oldest inhabitant" tells of the storms they had when he was a boy. and compares it with the ones of to-day. All of the old men seem to remember something a little worse when they were boys.

They acknowledge every winter to be the most severe within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, but doubtless old people sometimes forget.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

Yet is the schoolhouse rude

As the chrysalis is to the butterfly,
To the rich flowers the seed.

UMMER flowers had bloomed and faded.

SUMM

-Street's Poems.

Autumn fruits were

ripe. The chestnuts and hickory nuts had fallen to the ground, and the wild grape was frost killed upon the vine. The swamps had donned their Autumn hues, and dry leaves rustled under foot. The season was at hand when a school-teacher was to be chosen.

The school-meeting was called, and the candidates presented themselves; some from a distance, with their credentials, offered to take the school, in District 20. That was the district in which General Ivers lived, and as a matter of course, he was elected chairman. When the candidates had all been proposed and their merits canvassed, there was a general lull; it remained for General Ivers to make some remarks, which somewhat surprised some of the members of the board. He said there was no doubt but that one or two of the young men who had come before them were in every way qualified to teach the school.

"But," he said, "I have a proposition to make, which I think will meet with the approbation of the gentlemen composing the board of school directors. I am about to propose the name of a young man for teacher, who has grown up with us, who studied in this schoolhouse and who is every way qualified for the position; one who is worthy and deserving, but whose modesty will not allow him to present his name. I allude to Donald Kent."

The announcement caused some surprise. But no one seemed to speak, and the General said, if there was no objection, he would suggest that Mr. Brown and Mr. Cribbe wait upon the young man and get his consent to take the school.

One of the trustees ventured to ask if the boy could pass the exam

ination before the committee. The General said unless he could, of course he could not get a certificate, and that would end it, and they could engage some one else. And so the meeting adjourned to meet in three days.

In the meantime the committee waited upon Donald, who was more surprised than were the trustees when his name was first mentioned by General Ivers.

At first he said no. But when asked if he thought he could get a certificate he promptly answered yes. When they said General Ivers would expect him to accept the position, which he finally consented to do if he received a certificate.

In due course of time the school began, and it was admitted by all that there never had been a more orderly school kept in the district. Even Jack Young tried to behave himself, and it was well that he did, for the other boys of the school were not in a humor to bear much from the bully, since his mean abuse of Donald years before.

Of course, little Dura attended, and many a night was pleasantly passed beneath the roof of General Ivers, which was a relief to some of the poor families, since the teacher was expected to use all alike, prorating according to the number of pupils sent. As the saying was, "boarding around." It was surprising to every one in the district that Donald Kent, who came into the neighborhood scarcely three years before, a simple unlettered boy, should have so far outstripped all the best scholars in the school as to become their preceptor, and from that time forward the young pedagogue became of considerable importance. He was beloved and honored by all. The aged admired him for his sterling qualities, and the young appeared anxious to emulate the characteristics so much admired by those older than themselves.

When Joe Tartar was extricated from the little unpleasantness into which his temper had gotten him, he knocked around home and did nothing for some months. At length he went to the city, and, naturally enough, he visited an uncle, the brother of his father.

The old gentleman welcomed his nephew, and took him around to different establishments, hoping that something would interest him into which he could assist him to get a position.