e knew that she was a persistent and insistent exponent
of the belief of the Millerites--"Go-uppers," they called the sect
in Smyrna.

"I say you've got to open up and give this man his property," cried
Cap'n Sproul, advancing on them.

"Property? Who talks of property?" demanded Mrs. Luce, her voice
hollow with the hollowness of the prophet. "No one knows the day and
the hour when we are to be swept up. It is near at hand. We shall
ride triumphant to the skies. And will any one think of property and
the vain things of this world then?"

"Prob'ly not," agreed the Cap'n, sarcastically, "and there won't be
any need of a cook-stove in the place where your husband will fetch
up. He can do all his cookin' on a toastin'-fork over an open
fire--there'll be plenty of blaze."

"Don't squdge me too fur," repeated Mr. Luce, clinging to the most
expressive warning he could muster just then.

"It's full time for that critter to be fetched up with a round turn,"
muttered Constable Nute, coming close to the elbow of the first
selectman, where the latter stood glowering on the culprit. "I reckon
you don't know as much about him as I do. When his mother was nussin'
him, a helpless babe, he'd take the pins out'n her hair, and they
didn't think it was anything but playin'. Once he stole the specs
off'm her head whilst she was nappin' with him in her arms, and jammed
'em down a hole in the back of the rockin'-chair. Whilst old Doc Burns
was vaccinatin' him--and he wa'n't more'n tew years old--he got Doc's
watch."

"Those things would kind of give you a notion he'd steal, give him
a fair chance," commented Hiram, dryly.

"He's stole ever since--everything from carpet tacks to a load of
hay," snapped the constable, "till folks don't stop to think he's
stealin'. He's got to be like rats and hossflies and other pests--you
cuss 'em, but you reckon they've come to stay."

"I've abated some of the nuisances in this town," stated the Cap'n,
"and I cal'late I'm good for this one, now that it's been stuck under
my nose. Why haven't you arrested him in times past, same as you ought
to have done?"

"Wasn't any one who would swear out complaints," said the constable.
"He's allus been threatenin' what kairosene and matches would do to
barns; and it wouldn't be no satisfaction to send 'Liah Luce to State
Prison--he ain't account enough. It wouldn't pay the loser for a
stand of buildin's--havin' him there."

Cap'n Sproul began to understand