, and had given her up
to the minister of his own accord. So Daniels's guns was spiked and he
didn't stand no chance at all. However, you'd never have guessed it
to look at him. He marched into that meetin' and up to the platform as
stiff and dignified as if he'd swallered a peck of starch. He called
the meetin' to order--'twas a full one, for all hands and the cook was
there--and then got up to speak.

"He opened fire right off. He raked John Ellery fore and aft. The
parson, he said, had disgraced the society and his sacred profession
and should be hove overboard immediate. 'Twas an open secret, he said.
Everybody knew how he, minister of a Reg'lar church, had been carryin'
on with a Come-Outer girl, meetin' her unbeknownst to anyone, and so on.
As he got warmed up on this subject he got more bitter and, though he
didn't come out open and say slanderous things, his hints was as nigh
that as a pig's snout is to his squeal. Even through the crack of the
dish-closet door I could see the bristles risin' on the back of Cap'n
Zeb Mayo's neck.

"At last Cap'n Zeb couldn't stand it no longer.

"'Belay there!' he sings out, jumpin' to his feet. 'I want to ask you
one question, Elkanah Daniels: Are you tryin' to say somethin' against
Grace Van Horne's character?'

"Well, that was a sort of sticker, in a way, and I cal'late Daniels
realized it. He 'hum-ha'd' and barked a little and then give in that he
couldn't swear the Van Horne person's character wa'n't all right, but--"

"'Couldn't swear!' snorts Zeb. 'You better not try to, not when the
minister or Nat's around. Aw, belay! you want us to fire John Ellery
out of this society--the best minister it ever had or ever will
have--because he had the sense to get sweet on a good clean girl and the
spunk to ask her to marry him. And you're down on her because she's been
brought up in a Come-Outer family--at least, that's the reason you give
out, though some of us have suspicions 'tain't the real one. Why! she
risked what she thought was smallpox to keep him from dyin' that night
she picked him up, ravin' distracted, in the middle of the lighthouse
lane, and if he hadn't married her after that I, for one, would have
been willin' to vote to give him his walkin' papers, Come-Outer she may
have been, but, by time, she's got religion that's good enough for me
and I'll be proud to see her the wife of my minister. Don't let's have
no more chin music. We know what you want and what you c