ng wine; and ye say, he
hath a devil."

The neighbors saw the point, for a short time before, when the eldest
daughter, Mary, had married Richard Cranch (the man who was to achieve a
post-office), the community had entered a protest, and the Reverend Mr.
Smith had preached from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary
hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." So
there, now!

And John and Abigail were married one evening at early candlelight, in the
church at Weymouth. The good father performed the ceremony, and nearly
broke down during it, they say, and then he kissed both bride and groom.

The neighbors had repaired to the parsonage and were eating and drinking
and making merry when John and Abigail slipped out by the back gate, and
made their way, hand in hand, in the starlight, down the road that ran
through the woods to Braintree. When near the village they cut across the
pasture-lot and reached their cottage, which for several weeks they had
been putting in order. John unlocked the front door, and they entered over
the big, flat stone at the entry, and over which you may enter now, all
sunken and worn by generations of men gone. Some whose feet have pressed
that doorstep we count as the salt of the earth, for their names are
written large on history's page. Washington rode out there on horseback,
and while his aide held his horse, he visited and drank mulled cider and
ate doughnuts within. Hancock came often, and Otis, Samuel Adams and
Loring used to enter without plying the knocker.

Through the earnest work of William G. Spear, the cottage has now been
restored and fully furnished, as near like it was then as knowledge, fancy
and imagination can devise.

When we reached Quincy we saw a benevolent-looking old Puritan, and June
said, "Ask him!"

"Can you tell me where we can find Mr. Spear, the antiquarian?" I
inquired.

"The which?" said the son of Priscilla Mullins.

"Mr. Spear, the antiquarian," I repeated.

"It's not Bill Spear who keeps a secondhand-shop, you want, mebbe?"

"Yes; I think that is the man."

And so we were directed to the "secondhand-shop," which proved to be the
rooms of the Quincy Historical Society. And there we saw such a wondrous
collection of secondhand stuff that, as we looked and looked, and Mr.
Spear explained, and gave large slices of Colonial history, June, who is a
Daughter of the American Revolution, gushed a trifle more than was meet