ind the foul
fiend, he grasped its dark form in his arms, and found as he suspected,
that it was no other devil than little tantalizing Troffater, with a
carved squash shell, set out with an ox's ears, on his head, bearing
his idea of a devil's image, and lighted within by a brilliant candle!

The terror of the company soon subsided, and Fabens admonished them
against yielding again to such senseless fears; while they all departed
for their homes, and the poor transgressor was discharged with a
reprimand so sharpened by kindness that it seemed to cleave his heart.

XI.

FABENS PROMOTED TO HONOR.

In four years more, the Waldron Settlement had grown to quite a colony;
for the area of civilization extended from the Cayuga to the Owasco,
and ten miles north and south; and though the population numbered
several hundred families, and the inroads of fashion and pride began to
be perceptible there, still it remained a neighborhood; and with few
exceptions, the people exchanged neighborly offices and loves
throughout the settlement.

The inhabitants now felt the importance of their flourishing community,
and made a movement to be organized into a township, and have town
officers, and better regulations. That movement was successful, and
the town took the name of Summerfield, and a warm and summer-green town
it was as the Lake Country had to show.

Walter Mowry was elected the first Supervisor, and Matthew Fabens, the
first Justice of the Peace.

At this late period, public offices are so plenty, and so often held by
persons whose devotion to party, or whose failure in other pursuits is
their only recommendation, that the plain and humble office of Justice
of the Peace receives little respect, and would find few candidates,
but for the lucrative interests which induce many to ask it. It was
not so, forty years ago in the Lake Country. At that primitive period,
that responsible office was given to no one who had not moral
qualifications to recommend him; and the person who held it was honored
as possessing capabilities equal to his duties, and holding along with
these the affection and faith of the town.

When the organization was first proposed, and the several offices were
named, the eyes of the settlement, with two or three exceptions, were
turned to Fabens, as the man best qualified to administer justice and
peace among them; and to elect him to that station was simply to say
'thus shall it be with the man