paper on the
"Probable Extinction of the Crotalus Durissus in the Township of
Rockland." The engagement of the Widow Rowens to a Little Millionville
merchant was announced,--"Sudding 'n' onexpected," Widow Leech
said,--"waalthy, or she wouldn't ha' looked at him,--fifty year old,
if he is a day, 'n' hu'n't got a white hair in his head." The Reverend
Chauncy Fairweather had publicly announced that he was going to join the
Roman Catholic communion,--not so much to the surprise or consternation
of the religious world as he had supposed. Several old ladies forthwith
proclaimed their intention of following him; but, as one or two of them
were deaf, and another had been threatened with an attack of that mild,
but obstinate complaint, dementia senilis, many thought it was not so
much the force of his arguments as a kind of tendency to jump as the
bellwether jumps, well known in flocks not included in the Christian
fold. His bereaved congregation immediately began pulling candidates on
and off, like new boots, on trial. Some pinched in tender places; some
were too loose; some were too square-toed; some were too coarse, and
did n't please; some were too thin, and would n't last;--in short, they
could n't possibly find a fit. At last, people began to drop in to hear
old Doctor Honeywood. They were quite surprised to find what a human old
gentleman he was, and went back and told the others, that, instead of
being a case of confluent sectarianism, as they supposed, the good old
minister had been so well vaccinated with charitable virus that he was
now a true, open-souled Christian of the mildest type. The end of all
which was, that the liberal people went over to the old minister almost
in a body, just at the time that Deacon Shearer and the "Vinegar-Bible"
party split off, and that not long afterwards they sold their own
meeting-house to the malecontents, so that Deacon Soper used often to
remind Colonel Sprowle of his wish that "our little man and him [the
Reverend Doctor] would swop pulpits," and tell him it had "pooty nigh
come trew."--But this is anticipating the course of events, which were
much longer in coming about; for we have but just got through that
terrible long month, as Mr. Dudley Venner found it, of December.

On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham was in the habit of settling
his quarterly accounts, and making such new arrangements as his
convenience or interest dictated. New Year was a holiday at the
Institut