an earnest curiosity to know what
the old man would say for himself.

During all this time of angry discussion, good old Peter was quietly
and calmly cutting and hauling wood on the Little Mountain. His mind
was in a condition of great comfort and peace, for not only had he
been able to rid himself, in his last sermon, of many of the hard
thoughts concerning women that had been gathering themselves together
for years, but his absence from home had given him a holiday from
the harassments of Aunt Rebecca's tongue, so that no new notions of
woman's culpability had risen within him. He had dismissed the subject
altogether, and had been thinking over a sermon regarding baptism,
which he thought he could make convincing to certain of the younger
members of his congregation.

He arrived at home very late on Saturday night, and retired to his
simple couch without knowing anything of the terrible storm which had
been gathering through the week, and which was to burst upon him on
the morrow. But the next morning, long before church time, he
received warning enough of what was going to happen. Individuals and
deputations gathered in and about his cabin--some to tell him all that
had been said and done; some to inform him what was expected of him;
some to stand about and look at him; some to scold; some to denounce;
but, alas! not one to encourage; nor one to call him "Brudder Pete,"
that Sunday appellation dear to his ears. But the old man possessed a
stubborn soul, not easily to be frightened.

"Wot I says in de pulpit," he remarked, "I'll 'splain in de pulpit,
an' you all ud better git 'long to de chu'ch, an' when de time fur de
sarvice come, I'll be dar."

This advice was not promptly acted upon, but in the course of half an
hour nearly all the villagers and loungers had gone off to the church
in the woods; and when Uncle Peter had put on his high black hat,
somewhat battered, but still sufficiently clerical looking for that
congregation, and had given something of a polish to his cowhide
shoes, he betook himself by the accustomed path to the log building
where he had so often held forth to his people. As soon as he entered
the church he was formally instructed by a committee of the leading
members that before he began to open the services, he must make it
plain to the congregation that what he had said on the preceding
Sunday about every woman being possessed by seven devils was Scripture
truth, and not mere wicked nonse