e unto a grain of wheat planted in
good earth, that bringeth forth fruit in due season an hundred fold."

III.

Mr. Pill, with all his seeming levity, was a powerful hand at revivals,
as was developed at the "protracted" meetings held at the Corners during
December. Indeed, such was the pitiless intensity of his zeal that a
gloom was cast over the whole township; the ordinary festivities stopped
or did not begin at all.

The lyceum, which usually began by the first week in December, was put
entirely out of the question, as were the spelling-schools and
"exhibitions." The boys, it is true, still drove the girls to meeting in
the usual manner; but they all wore a furtive, uneasy air, and their
laughter was not quite genuine at its best, and died away altogether
when they came near the school-house, and they hardly recovered from the
effects of the preaching till a mile or two had been spun behind the
shining runners. It took all the magic of the jingle of the bells and
the musical creak of the polished steel on the snow to win them back to
laughter.

As for Elder Pill, he was as a man transformed. He grew more intense
each night, and strode back forth behind his desk and pounded the Bible
like an assassin. No more games with the boys, no more poking the girls
under the chin! When he asked for a chew of tobacco now it was with an
air which said: "I ask it as sustenance that will give me strength for
the Lord's service," as if the demands of the flesh had weakened the
spirit.

Old man Bacon overtook Milton Jennings early one Monday morning, as
Milton was marching down toward the Seminary at Rock River. It was
intensely cold and still, so cold and still that the ring of the cold
steel of the heavy sleigh, the snort of the horses, and the old man's
voice came with astonishing distinctness to the ears of the hurrying
youth, and it seemed a very long time before the old man came up.

"Climb on!" he yelled, out of his frosty beard. He was seated on the
"hind bob" of a wood-sleigh, on a couple of blankets. Milton clambered
on, knowing well he'd freeze to death there.

"Reckon I heerd you prowlun' around the front door with my girl last
night," Bacon said at length. "The way you both 'tend out t' meetun'
ought 'o sanctify yeh; must 'a' stayed to the after-meetun', didn't
yeh?"

"Nope. The front part was enough for"----

"Danged if I was any more fooled with a man in m' life. I b'lieve the
whole thing is a littl