I understand now why you were so anxious to climb the ladder
and see what was the matter with the bell: you only wanted to get your
brother into trouble, so I shall give you a double punishment.'

"And besides the whippin', Martin Luther said they made him and John
Calvin learn pretty near all the psalms. That's the way children was
dealt with in old times. Martin Luther used to say, 'Boys, if I got
all this for tyin' one sock on that old bell-clapper, what would it
'a' been if I'd tied a pair o' socks on it?'"

The old farmhouse was in sight, and Nelly's brisk gait showed what she
could do if she would. Such inspiration is the thought of home, even
to dumb animals. Suddenly I drew rein and assumed a look of deep
dismay.

"Aunt Jane," I cried, "we have forgotten something."

"La, child, you don't say so," said Aunt Jane, turning over the
parcels in her lap and hurriedly counting them. "Why, no we ain't.
Here's the soda and the cream o' tartar and the gyarden seed all
right."

"But you forgot to tell me the story of the house that was a wedding
fee," said I with dramatic solemnity.

"Now did anybody ever!" laughed Aunt Jane. "Skeerin' me to death about
a old yarn like that! Well, honey, that story's sixty years old
already, and I reckon it'll keep a little longer yet. Some o' these
days I'll tell you the story of that old house. I reckon I owe you
another story for takin' me to town and bringin' me home so nice. I'm
mighty glad I've seen the old place once more, for the next time I go
to town maybe I'll go in the direction of the New Jerusalem."

After Nelly had been unharnessed and fed, I sat down on the porch to
watch the passing of day. Ah! surely it is worth while to go to town
now and then just for the pleasure of getting back to the country, to
its purer air, its solitude, its blessed stillness. I lifted up my
eyes unto the hills and let the sunset and the twilight hold me in
their spells till Aunt Jane's voice called me in with a warning of the
danger that lurks in falling dew; and when I closed my eyes in sleep
that night, my brain was a panorama of strange scenes. Past and
present were mingled, as a picture painted within a picture, for,
through Aunt Jane's eyes, I, too, had seen double. I had gone to town
over the old 'pike, but I had also traveled the road of dead years,
and it had led me into the Land of Long Ago.

II

THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE

[Illustration]

II

THE H