be, east, in
having every word exactly in its place when you wrote your sermons.
Please, now, just help Tom unload, and set these things in, and I'll
have tea ready directly, and we'll be where we can cheer you a bit.
But what about this fire?"

"Our cabin has had a very narrow escape."

"Yes," said Tom, coming up, "I've been out to look, and the fire just
came up to your line, and then stopped."

Mr. Payson was deeply affected by the intelligence, for, knowing that
no human power could stay the advancing flames, upon the cabin top he
had been praying that the wind might change. Was it in answer to his
silent petitions that it had taken place in so timely a manner?

CHAPTER XI.

OLD MRS. SKINFLINT IN TROUBLE.--LOST IN THE WOODS.

There is no man so bad as he might be--a fact that everybody knows,
but that most are apt to forget in their estimate of those who have
offended their sense of right.

Mr. Smith had his virtues as well as faults; perhaps more of the
latter than the former; but there were some mollifying circumstances
to be taken into the account in the summing up of his character. His
natural love of money had been stimulated and intensified by the
malign influence of his wife. She was miserly when he married her. To
keep what she had, and get what she could, was her ruling passion;
besides which she had a passion _for_ ruling. And often, when her
husband's gentler heart would be touched by a tale of suffering, and
his hand be opened to relieve the distressed, would she interfere to
prevent the indulgence of the benevolent impulse; and now, after some
thirty years' matrimonial moulding, he had become so assimilated to
her grasping spirit, and so accustomed to yield to her stronger will,
that his dealings in business made him appear worse than he really
was. In the sale of the "eighty-acre lot" to the missionary, about
which much indignation was felt in the settlement, Mrs. Smith was the
chief actor. Mr. Smith was the monkey employed to pull the chestnuts
out of the fire, although, it must be confessed, he relished the
chestnuts. She was a crafty woman, and kept out of sight in the
transaction while she urged him on, so that people saw only Mr. Smith
in the wrong-doing, when, if they could have peeped behind the
curtain, they would have seen that his "better half" was the more
guilty.

The thirty dollars which Mr. Smith finally consented to take for the
"improvements on the claim," Mr. Payson