they put a text on his tomb--"For he had great
possessions."

The McAndrewses has corner lots in the New Jerusalem, and is surely the
standard of morals until Cousin Abner went shiftless and wrote poems.
They'd allus been so durned respectable, too.

Anyway, mother's folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty
well fixed in Nova Scotia. She'd talk like a book, too. You'd never
suspect mother, playing the harmonium in church, with a tuning-fork to
sharpen the preacher's voice, black boots, white socks, box-plaited
crinoline, touch-me-not frills, poke bonnet, served all round with
scratch-the-kisser roses. Yes, I seen the daguerreotype, work of a
converted photographer--nothing to pay. Thar's mother--full suit of
sail, rated a hundred A-one at Lloyd's, the most important sheep in the
Lord's flock. Then she's found out, secretly married among the goats.
Her name's scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the
Lord to scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She's married a
sailorman before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a
dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. Why, she'd been engaged to the
leading grocery in Pugwash. Oh, great is the fall thereof, and her name
ain't alluded to no more. "The ways of the Lord," says she, "is surely
wonderful."

In them days the Labrador ain't laid out exactly to suit mother. She's
used to luxury--coal in the lean-to, taties in the cellar, cows in the
barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail
right handy, so she can enjoy the ungodly getting their just deserts.
But in our time the Labrador was just God's country, all rocks, ice, and
sea, to put the fear into proud hearts--no need of teachers. It kills
off the weaklings--no need of doctors. A school to raise men--no need of
preachers. The law was "work or starve"--no place for lawyers. It's
police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and
vapors, wind and storm fulfilling His word. Nowadays I reckon there'd be
a cinematograph theater down street to distract your attention from
facts, and you'd order molasses by wireless, invoiced C. O. D. to
Torngak, Lab. Can't I hear mother's voice acrost the years, and the
continents, as she reads the lesson: "'He casteth forth His ice like
morsels: who can stand before His cold?'"

Father's home was an overturned schooner, turfed in, and he was surely
proud of having a bigger place than any other Liveyere