"Ye don\'t say?"

"I do though."

"Wa\'al, I never."

"Nuther did I—adzackly."

"Don\'t be provokin\', Ephr\'m—what makes you talk in that dou\'fle way?"

"Wa\'al, ma, the world hain\'t all squeezed into this yere little town of Crankett. I\'ve been elsewheres, some, an\' I\'ve seed some funny things, and likewise some that wuzn\'t so funny ez they might be."

"P\'r\'aps ye hev, but ye needn\'t allus be a-settin\' other folks down. Mebbe Crankett ain\'t the whole world, but it\'s seed that awful case of Molly Capins, and the shipwreck of thirty-four, when the awful nor\'easter wuz, an\'—"

"Wa\'al, wa\'al, ma—don\'t let\'s fight \'bout it," said Ephr\'m, with a sigh, as he tenderly scraped down a new ax-helve with a piece of glass, while his wife made the churn-dasher hurry up and down as if the innocent cream was Ephr\'m\'s back, and she was avenging thereon Ephr\'m\'s insults to Crankett and its people.

Deacon Ephraim Crankett was a descendant of the founder of the village, and although now a sixty-year old farmer, he had in his lifetime seen considerable of the world. He had been to the fishing-banks a dozen times, been whaling twice, had carried a cargo of wheat up the Mediterranean, and had been second officer of a ship which had picked up a miscellaneous cargo in the heathen ports of Eastern Asia.

He held it under the light.
Jim Hockson\'s Revenge.—"He held it under
the light, and examined it closely."

He had picked up a great many ideas, too, wherever he had been, and his wife was immensely proud of him and them, whenever she could compare them with the men and ideas which existed at Crankett; but when Ephr\'m displayed his memories and knowledge to her alone—oh, that was a very different thing.

"Anyhow," resumed Mrs. Crankett, raising the lid of the churn to see if there were any signs of butter, "it\'s an everlastin\' shame. Jim Hockson\'s a young feller in good standin\' in the Church, an\' Millie Botayne\'s an unbeliever—they say her father\'s a reg\'lar infidel."

"Easy, ma, easy," gently remonstrated Ephr\'m. "When he seed you lookin\' at his pet rose-bush on yer way to church las\' Sunday, didn\'t he hurry an\' pull two or three an\' han\' \'em to ye?"

"Yes, an\' what did he hev\' in t\'other han\'?—a Boasting paper, an\' not a Sunday one, nuther! Millicent ain\'t a Christian name, nohow ye can fix it—it amounts to jest \'bout\'s much ez she does, an\' that\'s nothing. She\'s got a soft face, an\' purty hair—ef it\'s all her own, which I powerfully doubt—an\' after that ther\'s nothin\' to her. She\'s never been to sewin\' meetin\', an\' she\'s off a boatin\' with that New York chap every Saturday afternoon, instead of goin\' to the young people\'s prayer-meetin\'s."

"She\'s most supported Sam Ransom\'s wife an\' young uns since Sam\'s smack was lost," suggested Ephr\'m.

"That\'s you, Deac\'n Crankett," replied his wife, "always stick up for sinners. P\'r\'aps you\'d make better use of your time ef you\'d examine yer own evidences."

"Wa\'al, wife," said the deacon, "she\'s engaged to that New York feller, ez you call Mr. Brown, so there\'s no danger of Jim bein\' onequally yoked with an onbeliever. An\' I wish her well, from the bottom of my heart."

"I don\'t," cried Mrs. Crankett, giving the dasher a vicious push, which sent the cream flying frantically up to the top of the churn; "I hope he\'ll turn out bad, an\' her pride\'ll be tuk down ez—"

The deacon had been long enough at sea to know the signs of a long storm, and to know that prudence suggested a prompt sailing out of the course of such a storm, when possible; so he started for the door, carrying the glass and ax-helve with him. Suddenly the door opened, and a female figure ran so violently against the ax-helve, that the said figure was instantly tumbled to the floor, and seemed an irregular mass of faded pink calico, and subdued plaid shawl.

"Miss Peekin!" exclaimed Mrs. Crankett, dropping the churn-dasher and opening her eyes.

"Like to ha\' not been," whined the figure, slowly arising and giving the offending ax-helve a glance which would have set it on fire had it not been of green hickory; "but—hev you heerd?"

"What?" asked Mrs. Crankett, hastily setting a chair for the newcomer, while Ephr\'m, deacon and sixty though he was, paused in his almost completed exit.

"He\'s gone!" exclaimed Miss Peekin.

"Oh, I heerd Jim hed gone to Califor—"

"Pshaw!" said Miss Peekin, contemptuously; "that was days ago! I mean Brown—the New York chap—Millie Botayne\'s lover!"

"Ye don\'t?"

"But I do; an\' what\'s more, he had to. Ther wuz men come after him in the nighttime, but he must hev heard \'em, fur they didn\'t find him in his room, an\' this mornin\' they found that his sailboat was gone, too. An\' what\'s more, ther\'s a printed notice up about him, an\' he\'s a defaulter, and there\'s five thousand dollars for whoever catches him, an\' he\'s stole twenty-five, an\' he\'s all described in the notice, as p\'ticular as if he was a full-blood Alderney cow."

"Poor fellow," sighed the deacon, for which interruption he received a withering glance from Miss Peekin.

"They say Millie\'s a goin\' on awful, and that she sez she\'ll marry him now if he\'ll come back. But it ain\'t likely he\'ll be such a fool; now he\'s got so much money, he don\'t need hern. Reckon her an\' her father won\'t be so high an\' mighty an\' stuck up now. It\'s powerful discouragin\' to the righteous to see the ungodly flourishin\' so, an\' a-rollin\' in ther wealth, when ther betters has to be on needles all year fur fear the next mack\'ril catch won\'t \'mount to much. The idee of her bein\' willin\' to marry a defaulter! I can\'t understand it."

"Poor girl!" sighed Mrs. Crankett, wiping one eye with the corner of her apron. "I\'d do it myself, ef I was her?"

The deacon dropped the ax-helve, and gave his wife a tender kiss on each eye.