ticket, which I told him he might use, if he liked to. That
was that very sharp election in Maine which the readers of _The
Atlantic_ so well remember, and it had been intimated in public that
the ministers would do well not to appear at the polls. Of course,
after that, we had to appear by self or proxy. Still, Naguadavick was
not then a city, and this standing in a double queue at townmeeting
several hours to vote was a bore of the first water; and so, when I
found that there was but one Frederic Ingham on the list, and that one
of us must give up, I stayed at home and finished the letters (which,
indeed, procured for Fothergill his coveted appointment of Professor
of Astronomy at Leavenworth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the
chance. Something in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the
Frederic Ingham name; and at the adjourned election, next week,
Frederic Ingham was chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I or
Dennis, I never really knew. My friends seemed to think it was I; but
I felt, that, as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled to
the honor; so I sent him to Augusta when the time came, and he took
the oaths. And a very valuable member he made. They appointed him on
the Committee on Parishes; but I wrote a letter for him, resigning, on
the ground that he took an interest in our claim to the stumpage in
the minister's sixteenths of Gore A, next No. 7, in the 10th Range. He
never made any speeches, and always voted with the minority, which was
what he was sent to do. He made me and himself a great many good
friends, some of whom I did not afterwards recognize as quickly as
Dennis did my parishioners. On one or two occasions, when there was
wood to saw at home, I kept him at home; but I took those occasions to
go to Augusta myself. Finding myself often in his vacant seat at these
times, I watched the proceedings with a good deal of care; and once
was so much excited that I delivered my somewhat celebrated speech on
the Central School District question, a speech of which the State of
Maine printed some extra copies. I believe there is no formal rule
permitting strangers to speak; but no one objected.

Dennis himself, as I said, never spoke at all. But our experience this
session led me to think, that if, by some such "general understanding"
as the reports speak of in legislation daily, every member of Congress
might leave a double to sit through those deadly sessions and answer
to