tured and smooth-shaved,
and I don' know as, to come in sudden, you would have thought he was a
man, except his hair stood up short and straight all on the top of his
head, as men-folks had a fashion o' combing their hair then, and I must
say he did make a dreadful ordinary-looking woman. The neighbors got
used to his ways, and, land! I never thought nothing of it after the
first week or two.

"His sister's clothes that he wore first was too small for him, and so
my cousin Statiry, that kep' his house, she made him a linsey-woolsey
dress with a considerable short skirt, and he was dreadful pleased with
it, she said, because the other one never would button over good, and
showed his wais'coat, and she and I used to make him caps; he used to
wear the kind all the old women did then, with a big crown, and close
round the face. I've got some laid away up-stairs now that was my
mother's--she wore caps very young, mother did. His nephew that lived
with him carried on the farm, and managed the business, but he always
treated the cap'n as if he was head of everything there. Everybody
pitied the cap'n; folks respected him; but you couldn't help laughing,
to save ye. We used to try to keep him in, afternoons, but we couldn't
always."

"Tell her about that day he went to meeting," said Mrs. Snow.

"Why, one of us always used to stay to home with him; we took turns; and
somehow or 'nother he never offered to go, though by spells he would be
constant to meeting in the morning. Why, bless you, you never'd think
anything ailed him a good deal of the time, if you saw him before noon,
though sometimes he would be freaky, and hide himself in the barn, or go
over in the woods, but we always kept an eye on him. But this Sunday
there was going to be a great occasion. Old Parson Croden was going to
preach; he was thought more of than anybody in this region: you've heard
tell of him a good many times, I s'pose. He was getting to be old, and
didn't preach much. He had a colleague, they set so much by him in his
parish, and I didn't know's I'd ever get another chance to hear him, so
I didn't want to stay to home, and neither did Cousin Statiry; and Jacob
Gunn, old Mr. Gunn's nephew, he said it might be the last time ever he'd
hear Parson Croden, and he set in the seats anyway; so we talked it all
over, and we got a young boy to come and set 'long of the cap'n till we
got back. He hadn't offered to go anywhere of an afternoon for a long
time.