march over the
eggs.

"'Stop, now!' says the parson. 'I'll make him get down agin: hand me
that corn-basket; we'll put that over him.'

"So he crooked old Tom's legs, and got him down agin; and they put the
corn-basket over him, and then they both stood and waited.

"'That'll do the thing, Huldy,' said the parson.

"'I don't know about it,' says Huldy.

"'Oh, yes, it will, child! I understand,' says he.

"Just as he spoke, the basket riz right up and stood, and they could see
old Tom's long legs.

"'I'll make him stay down, confound him,' says the parson; for, ye see,
parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk
up.

"'You jist hold him a minute, and I'll get something that'll make him
stay, I guess;' and out he went to the fence, and brought in a long,
thin, flat stone, and laid it on old Tom's back.

"Old Tom he wilted down considerable under this, and looked railly as if
he was goin' to give in. He staid still there a good long spell, and
the minister and Huldy left him there and come up to the house; but
they hadn't more than got in the door before they see old Tom a hippin'
along, as high-steppin' as ever, sayin' 'Talk! talk! and quitter!
quitter!' and struttin' and gobblin' as if he'd come through the Red
Sea, and got the victory.

"'Oh, my eggs!' says Huldy. 'I'm afraid he's smashed 'em!'

"And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat enough under the stone.

"'I'll have him killed,' said the parson: 'we won't have such a critter
'round.'

"But the parson, he slep' on't, and then didn't do it: he only come
out next Sunday with a tip-top sermon on the 'Riginal Cuss' that was
pronounced on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed how every
thing was allowed to go contrary ever since. There was pig-weed, and
pusley, and Canady thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, and canker-worms,
to say nothin' of rattlesnakes. The doctor made it very impressive and
sort o' improvin'; but Huldy, she told me, goin' home, that she hardly
could keep from laughin' two or three times in the sermon when she
thought of old Tom a standin' up with the corn-basket on his back.

"Wal, next week Huldy she jist borrowed the minister's horse
and side-saddle, and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt
Bascome's,--Widder Bascome's, you know, that lives there by the
trout-brook,--and got a lot o' turkey-eggs o' her, and come back and set
a hen on 'em, and said nothin'; and in good time there was as nic