st of Pointview, and you ought to be able to
take Benson's Hill,' Marie had said to Harry. 'Grandfather is the last
enemy of your crusade.'

"It was a timely touch on the accelerator, and Harry began to speed up
a little.

"'The farm is so well defended, and there's nothing I dread so much as
a hickory cane,' the boy had answered. 'The last visit I made to the
farm I wondered whether I was going to convert him to my way of
thinking, or he was going to convert me to jelly.'

"Indeed, Deacon Joe stood firm as a mountain. People were saying that
the minister would win in a walk, when Marie converted her grandfather
by the most remarkable bit of woman's strategy that I ever observed.
It was Napoleonic.

"One day in May, Harry came, much excited, to my office. Deacon Joe
was about to move to his island, a mile or so off shore. He was going
to take Marie with him for an indefinite period. No boat would be
permitted to land there except his own and the Reverend Robert's.
Marie would be a sort of prisoner. That day she had told him of the
plan of her grandfather. In Harry's opinion Knowles had suggested
it.

"'Where is the girl's mother?' I asked.

"'On some Cook's tour in Europe, and the old man is crazy as a March
hare,' said my young friend. 'He's got a lot of bulldogs over there,
and his hired men have been instructed to shoot a hole in any boat
that comes near.'

"I went over to the Benson homestead that afternoon, and found Deacon
Joe sitting on the piazza.'

"'How are you?' I asked.

"'Not very stout,' said he; 'heart flutters like a ketched bird.'

"'What are you doing for it?'

"'Doctor give me some medicine; I fergit the name of it, but it is the
stuff they use to blow up safes with.'

"'Nitroglycerin! The very thing! I hope they will succeed in blowing
up your safe.'

"I was pretty close to the old man, and was always very frank with
him. He liked opposition, and was as fond of warfare as an Old
Testament hero.

"'What, sir?' he asked.

"'There are some folks that have got to be blowed up before you can
get an old idea out of their heads,' I went on. 'They are locked up
with rust. That's what's the matter with you, Deacon. Your brain needs
to be blowed open an' aired. You stored it full of ideas sixty years
ago and locked the door for fear they'd get away. They should have
been taken out and sorted over at least once a year, and some thrown
into the fire to make room for better ones. If life doe