stiddy, and Miss Cork hemmed and
hawed, and finally said, in kind of a meachin' way--

"Why, to meetin', of course."

He hadn't been in a meetin'-house for two years, and we all knew it,
and Miss Cork knew that we knew it--hence the meach.

"He don't go to meetin' here to Jonesville," sez Arville.

[Illustration: "He don't go to meetin' here."]

It wuz real mean in her, but I spoze it wuz to pay Miss Cork off for her
aggravatin'.

And she went on, "I live right acrost the road from Fasset's saloon, and
I see him and more'n a dozen other Jonesvillians there most every
Sunday.

"Goin' to Chicago hain't a-goin' to born a man agin, and change all
their habits and ways to once, and I believe if Cornelius Jr. didn't go
to the Fair he would go to worse places."

"Well," sez Miss Cornelius Cork, "if he did, I wouldn't have to bear the
sin. I feel that it is my duty to lift my voice and my strength aginst
the Sunday openin' of the Fair, and even if the boys did go to worse
places, my conscience would be clear; the sin wouldn't rest on my head."

Sez Arville, "That is the very way I have heard wimmen talk who burned
up their boys' cards, and checker-boards, and story-books, and drove
their children away from home to find amusement.

"They wanted the boys to set down and read the Bible and sam books year
in and year out, but they wouldn't do it, for there wuz times when the
young blood in 'em riz up and clamered for recreation and amusement,
and seein' that they couldn't git it at home, under the fosterin' care
of their father and mother, why, they looked for it elsewhere, and found
it in low saloons and bar-rooms, amongst wicked and depraved companions.
And then, when their boys turned out gamblers and drunkards, they would
say that their consciences wuz clear.

"But," says Arville, "that hain't the way the Lord done. He used Sundays
and week days to tell stories to the multitude, to amuse 'em, draw 'em
by the silken cord of fancy towards the true and the right, draw 'em
away from the bad towards the good. And if I had ten boys--"

"Which you hain't no ways likely to have," says Miss Cork; "no, indeed,
you hain't."

"No, thank Heaven! there hain't no chance on't. But if I had ten boys I
would ruther have 'em wanderin' through them beautiful halls, full of
the wonders of the world which the Lord made and give to His children
for their amusement and comfort--I would ruther have 'em there than to
have 'em help swell