is, I just looked it out in the dictionary, and there they call it
'a whole burnt-offering'; but it won't mean all that with me, I can tell
you!"

"But, my dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernaut
handsomely, and not squirm in the process?"

The Deacon indulged in an interrogative whistle, and jerked his thumb in
the direction of a corn-barn which stood near the base of the hill.

I requested explanation.

"The floor of that corn-barn," observed its proprietor, "is covered with
husks about four foot deep. Under those husks is my patent screw and a
lot of cider-fixins. That old mill's a rattle-trap, any way. There's a
place at the other end of the orchard a sight more handy for a new one.
So, when folks get to reading their Bible without leaving out the
marriage in Cana, why"--

"Then you have been badgered into this," I said, seeing that the Deacon
was not disposed to finish his sentence.

"Well, they've been pecking at me pretty hard; and when Mis' Greenlaw
and the girls went over, of course I couldn't hold out. I kept telling
'em that the Lord gave us apples, and I didn't believe He cared whether
we eat 'em or drank 'em. But you see I had to knock under."

I questioned if it was going to rain, after all; for the clouds were
scudding off to the east.

"They're just following the bend of the river," asserted the Deacon,
elevating his chin to bring them within range, and giving them a
significant nod, as if to recall an appointment. "These apple-trees will
be dripping well before night. I know the weather-signs in Foxden. It
_is_ going to rain,--and, what's more, when it does rain, it'll rain
artichokes,--and, what's more than that, I don't care if it does!"

III.

A wretched fragment of the singing-class met at the house of Mrs.
Widesworth. Professor Owlsdarck had kindly come over from Wrexford to
help fill up the rooms; but the pressure of his ponderous attainments
seemed only to compress yet more that handful of miscellaneous
miserables in the front-parlor. Eight or ten elderly people, one or two
undergraduates at home for the college-vacation,--these were the guests.
The precautions of Mrs. Romulus had not been taken in vain,--there could
be no singing: none, unless--but I trust that this evil suggestion
occurred to nobody--we were so lost to shame as to call upon the
college-boys to supply the place of our absent psalmody with some of
those Bacchanalian choruses with which they were doubtle