sed colleague would expect six hundred. The two joined made a
somewhat appalling sum for the people of Ashfield. They tried to combat
it in a variety of ways,--over tea-tables and barn-yard gates, as well
as in their formal conclaves; earnest for a good thing in the way of
preaching, but earnest for a good bargain, too.

"I say, Huldy," said the Deacon, in discussion of the affair over his
wife's fireside, "I wouldn't wonder if the Doctor 'ad put up somethin'
handsome between the French girl's boardin', and odds and ends."

"What if he ha'n't, Tourtelot? Miss Johns's got property, and what's
_she_ goin' to do with it, I want to know?"

On this hint the Deacon spoke, in his next encounter with the Squire
upon the street, with more boldness.

"It's my opinion, Squire, the Doctor's folks are pooty well off, now;
and if we make a trade with the new minister, so's he'll take the
biggest half o' the hard work of the parish, I think the old Doctor 'ud
worry along tol'able well on three or four hundred a year; heh, Squire?"

"Well, Deacon, I don't know about that;--don't know. Butcher's meat is
always butcher's meat, Deacon."

"So it is, Squire; and not so dreadful high, nuther. I've got a likely
two-year-old in the yard, that'll dress abaout a hundred to a quarter,
and I don't pretend to ask but twenty-five dollars; know anybody that
wants such a critter, Squire?"

With very much of the same relevancy of observation the affair is
bandied about for a week or more in the discussions at the
society-meetings, with danger of never coming to any practical issue,
when a wiry little man--in a black Sunday coat, whose tall collar chafes
the back of his head near to the middle--rises from a corner where he
has grown vexed with the delay, and bursts upon the solemn conclave in
this style:--

"Brethren, I ha'n't been home to chore-time in the last three days, and
my wife is gittin' worked up abaout it. Here we've bin a-settin' and
a-talkin' night arter night, and arternoon arter arternoon for more 'n a
week, and 'pears to me it 's abaout time as tho' somethin' o' ruther
ought to be done. There's nobody got nothin' agin the Doctor that I've
_heerd_ of. He's a smart old gentleman, and he's a clever old gentleman,
and he preaches what I call good, stiff doctrine; but we don't feel much
like payin' for light work same as what we paid when the work was
heavy,--'specially if we git a new minister on our hands. But then,
brethren, I don