this: whether you think you'd like
to fall into our way of living, or return like a hog to your wallow.'

"'I don't say but what I like your way of livin' very well,' he
grumbled.

"'Then,' says I, 'you must just let us go ahead, as we have been going
ahead. Now's the time for you to turn about and be a respectable man,
like your neighbors. Just own up, and say you've not only been out of
your head the past four years, but that you've been more or less out of
your head the last four-and-twenty years. But say you're in your right
mind now, and prove it by acting like a man in his right mind. Do that,
and I'm with you; we're all with you. But go back to your old dirty
ways, and you go alone. Now I sha'n't let you off till you tell me what
you mean to do.'

"He hesitated some time, then said, 'Maybe you're about right, Stark;
you and Dave and the old woman seem to be doin' pooty well, and I guess
I'll let you go on.'"

Here my friend paused, as if his story was done; when one of the
villagers asked, "About the land where the old meetin'-house stood--what
ever was done with that?"

"That was appropriated for a new school-house; and there my little
shavers go to school."

"And old Jedwort, is he alive yet?"

"Both Jedwort and his wife have gone to that country where meanness and
dishonesty have a mighty poor chance--where the only investments worth
much are those recorded in the Book of Life. Mrs. Jedwort was rich
in that kind of stock; and Jedwort's account, I guess, will compare
favorably with that of some respectable people, such as we all know. I
tell ye, my friends," continued my fellow-traveler, "there's many a man,
both in the higher and lower ranks of life, that 't would do a deal of
good, say nothing of the mercy 'twould be to their families, just to
knock 'em on the head, and make Nebu-chadnezzars of 'em--then, after
they'd been turned out to grass a few years, let 'em come back again,
and see how happy folks have been, and how well they have got along
without 'em.

"I carry on the old place now," he added. "The younger girls are married
off; Dan's a doctor in the North Village; and as for Dave, he and I have
struck ile. I'm going out to look at our property now."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House, by
J. T. Trowbridge

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO STOLE A MEETING-HOUSE ***

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