'll make a good calf-pastur'. I've never had my share o' the vally
o' that, either. I've let my neighbors' pigs and critters run on't long
enough; and now I'm jest goin' to take possession o' my own.'

"'Your own!' says the Deacon, in perfect consternation. 'You've no deed
on't.'

"'Wal, have you?'

"'No--but--the society--'

"'The s'ciety, I tell ye,' says Jedwort, holding his head up longer than
I ever knew him to hold it up at a time and grinning all the while in
Tal-cott's face--'the s'ciety is split to pieces. There a'n't no s'ciety
now--any more'n a pig's a pig arter you've butchered and e't it. You've
e't the pig amongst ye, and left me the pen. The s'ciety never had a
deed o' this 'ere prop'ty; and no man never had a deed o' this e're
prop'ty. My wife's gran'daddy, when he took up the land here, was a
good-natered sort of man, and he allowed a corner on't for his neighbors
to put up a temp'rary meetin'-house. That was finally used up--the kind
o' preachin' they had them days was enough to use up in a little time
any house that wa'n't fire-proof; and when that was preached to pieces,
they put up another shelter in its place. This is it. And now't the
land a'n't used no more for the puppose 'twas lent for, it goes back
nat'rally to the estate 'twas took from, and the buildin's along with
it.'

"'That's all a sheer fabrication,' says the Deacon. 'This land was never
a part of what's now your farm, any more than it was a part of mine.'

"'Wal,' says Jedwort, 'I look at it in my way, and you've a perfect
right to look at it in your way. But I'm goin' to make sure o' my way,
by puttin' a fence round the hull concern.'

"'And you're usin' some of my rails for to do it with!' says the Deacon.

"'Can you swear they're your rails?'

"'Yes, I can; they're the rails the freshet carried off from my farm
last spring, and landed on to yourn.'

"'So I've heard ye say. But can you swear to the partic'lar rails? Can
you swear, for instance, 't this 'ere is your rail? or this 'ere one?'

"'No; I can't swear to precisely them two--but--'

"'Can you swear to these two? or to any one or two?' says Jedwort. 'No,
ye can't. Ye can swear to the lot in general, but you can't swear to
any partic'lar rail, and that kind o' swearin' won't stand law, Deacon
Talcott. I don't boast of bein' an edicated man, but I know suthin' o'
what law is, and when I know it, I dror a line there, and I toe that
line, and I make my neighbors toe