objects while us
to laughter and debate.

Swan Neck is a representative circuit. It lies, as everybody knows,
somewhere upon the Eastern shore--that landmark and stronghold of
Methodism. The parsonage is in Crochettown, the county-seat, and the
circuit comprises half a dozen churches down the neck, among the pine
forests and on the bay side. Our father tells our mother on the way of
the advantages of the place, till we take it to be quite a metropolis.
He says that Wiggins, whom we succeed, gives a first-rate account of
it. One of the members (Judd) is a judge, and our church, in short,
rules the roast thereabout, and makes the Episcopalians stand around,
not to speak of the Baptists, who try as usual to edge us out.

The boys ask with glowing cheeks if there is a river at Crochettown,
and are thrown into ecstasy by the reply that a large steamboat
touches there twice a week, and that there is a drawbridge. We are
less interested in the statement that the schools are good, but hear
with delight the history of one Dumple, an innkeeper, who persecutes
our church and sells quantities of "rum" to our young men. William,
the son of Wiggins, our predecessor, was once seen in the bar-room and
reported to his father, who fetched him home by _posse comitatus_, and
found that he smelled strongly of soda water.

As we go along the road in this way, our furniture mean time having
been shipped by water, a very compact and knotty young man rides up
behind us upon a nag which we at once identify as church property. The
sleekness of the flanks betokens his conversance with other people's
corn-cribs, and he has a habit of shying at all the farm-house gates
as if habituated to stopping whenever he liked and staying to dinner.
His Perseus has a semi-gallant, semi-verdant way of lifting his hat,
and his voice is hard as his knuckles.

"Woa, Sal!" he says (all preachers drive mares, it may be
interpolated), "have I the pleasure of addressing Brother Ryder?"

"The same, sir."

"My name is Chough, sir; the annual Conference has done me the favor
of associating my name with yours at Swan Neck."

"Oh, ho! You are my colleague; my wife, Brother Chough!"

The wife runs Brother Chough over immediately, who looks very red and
awkward, and she gives her estimate of him in an undertone. It will be
bad for Chough if he is at all airish or scholastic, or individual in
his opinions, for between a senior pastor's wife and his young
assistant th