e meetin' house there in Zoar, built a new steeple, a
towerin' one. If wimmen had had their way, that steeple would have
pinted the other way."

Josiah looked up from Ayers' Almanac, which he wuz calmly perusin', and
sez he,

"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.

Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
gently sarcestickle.

"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."

[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]

Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."

"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.

Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
man that led her astray."

"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
at the advertisement on the back side on't.

"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
against the mouths of the witnesses."

"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but
some composed.

"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
all to try her faith."

I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
well what the story wuz he referred to.

It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.

She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.

And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
he put his arm round her and act