to do as we see all our
neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular
thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as
another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the
temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets to
church, and instances will be just as rare in the one case as in the
other."

The people saw the moral point clearly. They felt the force of what the
young orator had said. No one was willing to follow him.

"Have you anything to say, Mr. Crawford?" said the moderator.

Josiah merely shook his head.

"He don't care to put on his wife's bonnet agin public opinion," said
the blacksmith.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCHOOL THAT MADE LINCOLN PRESIDENT.

While teaching and preaching in Decatur, Jasper heard of the new village
of Salem, Illinois, on the Sangamon. He thought that the little town
might offer him a chance to exert a new influence, and he resolved to
visit it, and to preach and to teach there for a time should the people
receive him kindly.

The village was a small one, consisting of a community store, a
school-house, a tavern, and a few houses; and Jasper knew of only one
friend there at the time, a certain Mr. Duncan, who lived some two miles
from the main street and the store.

One afternoon, after a long journey over prairie land, Jasper came to
Mrs. Duncan's door, and was met cordially by the good woman, and invited
by her to make his home there for a time.

The family gathered around the story-telling missionary after supper,
and listened to his tales of the Rhine, all of which had some
soul-lesson in his view, and enabled him to preach by parables. No
stories better served this peculiar mission than Baron Fouque's, and
this night he related Thiodolf, the Icelander.

There came a rap at the door.

"Who can that be?" said Mrs. Duncan in alarm.

She opened the door, and a tall, dark-faced young man stood before her.

"Why, Abe," said Mrs. Duncan, "what has brought you here at this late
hour? I hope that nothing has happened!"

"That bill of yours. You paid me two dollars and six cents, did you not?
It was not right."

"Isn't it? Well, I paid you all that you asked me, like an honest woman,
so I am not to blame for any mistake. How much more do you want? If it
isn't too much I'll pay it, for I think that you mean well."

"More! That isn't it, Mrs. Duncan; you paid me six cents too much--you
ove