most dead.

He spoke up, and sez he:

"What is this Sabbath, anyway?"

We didn't any of us like that, and we showed we didn't by our means. We
didn't want any of his new-fangled idees, and we looked high-headed at
him and riz up.

But he kep right on, bein' determined to have his say.

"You can foller the Sabbath we keep right back, straight as a string, to
planet worship. Before old Babylon ever riz up at all, to say nothin' of
fallin', the dwellers in the Euphrates Valley kep a Sabbath. They spozed
there wuz seven planets, and one day wuz give to each of them. And
Saturday, the old Jewish Sabbath, wuz given to Saturn, cruel as ever he
could be if the ur in his name wuz changed to e. In those days it wuz
not forbidden to work in that day, but supposed to be unlucky.

"Some as Ma regards Friday."

It wuz known that Miss Widrig wouldn't begin a mite of work Fridays, not
even hemin' a towel or settin' up a sock or mitten.

And, sez he, "When we come down through history to the Hebrews, we find
it a part of the Mosaic law, the Ten Commandments.

"In the second book of the Bible we find the reason given for keeping
the Sabbath is, the Lord rested on that day. In the fifth book we find
the reason given is the keeping of a memorial for the deliverance out
of Egypt.

"Now this commandment only forbids working on that day; no matter what
else you do, you are obeying the fourth commandment. According to that
command, you could go to the World's Fair, or wherever you had a mind
to, if you did not work.

"The Puritan Sabbath wuz a very different one from that observed by
Moses and the Prophets, which wuz mainly a day of rest."

"Wall, I know," sez Miss Yerden, "that the only right way to keep the
Sabbath is jest as we do, go to meetin' and Sunday-school, and do jest
as we do."

Sez Lihu, "Maybe the people to whom the law wuz delivered didn't
understand its meaning so well as we do to-day, after the lapse of so
many centuries, so well as you do, Miss Yerden."

We all looked coldly at Lihu; we didn't approve of his talk. But Miss
Yerden looked tickled, she is so blind in her own conceit, and Lihu
spoke so polite to her, she thought he considered her word as goin'
beyend the Bible.

Then Lophemia Pegrum spoke up, and sez she--

"Don't you believe in keeping the Sabbath, Lihu?"

"Yes, indeed, I do," sez he, firm and decided. "I do believe in it with
all my heart. It is a blessed break in the hard creakin' roll of