as dispersed and disappeared, and the site of it is
owned and occupied by a busy little man, who wears eye-glasses and a
bob-tailed coat, and who is breeding Jersey cattle and experimenting
with ensilage. It is well for this little man's peace of mind that the
dispersion was an accomplished fact before he made his appearance. The
Jersey cattle would have been winked at, and the silo regarded as an
object of curiosity; but the eye-glasses and the bob-tailed coat would
not have been tolerated. But if Pinetucky had its peculiarities, it
also had its advantages. It was pleased with its situation and
surroundings, and was not puzzled, as a great many people have since
been, as to the origin of its name. In brief, Pinetucky was satisfied
with itself. It was a sparsely settled neighbourhood, to be sure, but
the people were sociable and comparatively comfortable. They could
remain at home, so to speak, and attend the militia musteri, and they
were in easy reach of a church-building which was not only used by all
denominations--Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians--as a house of
worship, but was made to serve as a schoolhouse. So far as petty
litigation was concerned, Squire Ichabod Inchly, the wheel-wright, was
prepared to hold justice-court in the open air in front of his shop
when the weather wag fine, and in any convenient place when the weather
was foul. "Gentlemen," he would say, when a case came before him, "I'd
a heap ruther shoe a horse or shrink a tire; yit if you _will_ have the
law, I'll try and temper it wi' jestice." This was the genuine
Pinetucky spirit, and all true Pinetuckians tried to live up to it.
When occasion warranted, they followed the example of larger
communities, and gossiped about each other; but rural gossip is oftener
harmless than not; besides, it is a question whether gossip does not
serve a definite moral purpose. If our actions are to be taken note of
by people whose good opinion is worth striving for, the fact serves as
a motive and a cue for orderly behaviour.

Yet it should be said that the man least respected by the Pinetuckians
was the man least gossiped about. This was Bradley Gaither, the richest
man in the neighbourhood. With few exceptions, all the Pinetuckians
owned land and negroes; but Bradley Gaither owned more land and more
negroes than the most of them put together. No man, to all appearances,
led a more correct life than Bradley Gaither. He was first at church,
and the last t