ill, which
made it necessary that the wedding should be postponed, or take place
somewhere else. To the first Mike would not hear, and as good old
Parson S----, whose sermons were never more than two hours long, came
regularly every Sunday night to preach in the schoolhouse, Mike
proposed that they be married there. Sally did not like this exactly,
but grandmother, who now ruled the household, said it was just the
thing, and accordingly it took place there.

The house was filled full, and those who could not obtain seats took
their station near the windows. Our party was early, but I was three
times compelled to relinquish my seat in favor of more distinguished
persons, and I began to think that if any one was obliged to go home
for want of room, it would be me; but I resolutely determined not to
go. I'd climb the chestnut tree first! At last I was squeezed on a
high desk between two old ladies, wearing two old black bonnets, their
breath sufficiently tinctured with tobacco smoke to be very
disagreeable to me, whose olfactories chanced to be rather
aristocratic than otherwise.

To my horror Father S---- concluded to give us the sermon before he
did the bride. He was afraid some of his audience would leave.
Accordingly there ensued a prayer half an hour long, after which eight
verses of a long meter psalm were sung to the tune of Windham. By this
time I gave a slight sign to the two old ladies that I would like to
move, but they merely shook their two black bonnets at me, telling me,
in fierce whispers, that "I mustn't stir in meetin'." Mustn't stir! I
wonder how I could stir, squeezed in as I was, unless they chose to
let me. So I sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead at a point where
the tips of my red shoes were visible, for my feet were sticking
straight out.

All at once my attention was drawn to a spider on the wall, who was
laying a net for a fly, and in watching his maneuvers I forgot the
lapse of time, until Father S---- had passed his sixthly and
seventhly, and was driving furiously away at the eighthly. By this
time the spider had caught the fly, whose cries sounded to me like
the waters of the sawmill; the tips of my red shoes looked like the
red berries which grew near the mine; the two old ladies at my side
were transformed into two tall black walnut trees, while I seemed to
be sliding down-hill.

At this juncture, one of the old ladies moved away from me a foot at
least (she could have done so bef