e of voice.

"Now look a-here, Skates; that stock o' yourn's good workin'-stock, but
they're tirrible hard feeders. Ef you've been offered two hunderd
dollars for that colt don't you wait 'tell after blueberryin'."

"Mebbe you think," said Brother Skates, now firmly established on both
boots, "'t I'm as green as a yaller cucumber!"

"Look out thar, Shamgar!" rang through the windows. "Give me sea-room
here!--give me sea-room!"--we saw and heard the preparatory swinging of
Captain Pharo's mallet--"cl'ar the way thar, Shamgar; for by the
everlastin' clam, I'm a-goin' to give ye a clip that'll send ye t' the
west shore o' Machias!"

A mighty concussion followed.

Elder Skates, as if reminded by these thunders of his duty, blushed
deeply with shame and penitence.

"Vesty," he pleaded tremulously, "will you start 'Carried by the
Angels'?"

Vesty went to the little organ.

Now we forgot all the rest, all that was rude and incongruous, forgot
how mean the school-house was, how few protective boards left upon it.
Captain Pharo and Captain Shamgar dropped their mallets at the first
sound of Vesty's voice, and came in on tiptoe, with changed faces,
reverent.

For there was the Basin sorrow in Vesty's voice, enough to subdue
greater discords, and the Basin hope in it, implicit, wonderful,
thrilled to tearful vision by a word:

"Carried by the angels,"

she sang.

"Carried by the angels.
Carried by the angels to the skies.
Carried by the angels,
Carried by the angels,
"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."

Coat-sleeves began to do duty across moist eyes; seeing--we all being
simple Basins--winged white forms in the still air outside the battered
schoolhouse, bearing worn, earth-weary forms away--

"Gathered with the lost in Paradise."

It was not so hard to speak now.

"I've got my finger on a tex' here," said a white-haired,
weather-beaten Basin, rising; "'In His love and in His pity He redeemed
us.' Now thar was a time when I didn't want nobody to say a word to me
about pity--no sir! Love I wanted and admirin' I wanted, but no pity;
that thar set me broilin'. But--now--I'd e'en a'most ruther have pity
than love; 'nd I thank God most o' all that, in my pride and in my
stren'th, and not wantin' no help an' gittin' mad at the thought of
it--all'as He pitied me, an' He pitied me cl'ar through to the end.

"For I tell ye, thar can be love and admirin', that flashes up in the
pan mig