molasses, yes, and of Endea rum--for this was
before the days of the revivals.

How those checker-paned windows bring back the picture of that village
green! The meeting-house has them, lantern-like, wide and high, in three
sashes--white meeting-house, seat alike of government and religion, with
its terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south. Behind
it is the long shed, and in front, rising out of the milkweed and the
flowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where
many a pillion has left its burden in times bygone. Honest Jock
Hallowell built that second meeting-house--was, indeed, still building
it at the time of which we write. He had hewn every beam and king post
in it, and set every plate and slip. And Jock Hallowell is the man who,
unwittingly starts this chronicle.

At noon, on one of those madcap April days of that Coniston country,
Jock descended from his work on the steeple to perceive the ungainly
figure of Jethro Bass coming toward him across the green. Jethro was
about thirty years of age, and he wore a coonskin cap even in those
days, and trousers tacked into his boots. He carried his big head
bent forward, a little to one aide, and was not, at first sight, a
prepossessing-looking person. As our story largely concerns him and we
must get started somehow, it may as well be to fix a little attention on
him.

"Heigho!" said Jock, rubbing his hands on his leather apron.

"H-how be you, Jock?" said Jethro, stopping.

"Heigho!" cried Jock, "what's this game of fox and geese you're
a-playin' among the farmers?"

"C-callate to git the steeple done before frost?" inquired Jethro,
without so much as a smile. "B-build it tight, Jock--b-build it tight."

"Guess he'll build his'n tight, whatever it is," said Jock, looking
after him as Jethro made his way to the little tannery near by.

Let it be known that there was such a thing as social rank in Coniston;
and something which, for the sake of an advantageous parallel, we may
call an Established Church. Coniston was a Congregational town still,
and the deacons and dignitaries of that church were likewise the pillars
of the state. Not many years before the time of which we write actual
disestablishment had occurred, when the town ceased--as a town--to pay
the salary of Priest Ware, as the minister was called. The father
of Jethro Bass, Nathan the currier, had once, in a youthful lapse,
permitted a Baptist preacher to immerse