hat. It makes such an early start.
We generally try to get around, when we go, in time for Sunday-school.
They have singin' and all. It's just about as interestin', I think, as
preachin'. The old man r'aly likes it," she observed aside to me; "when
he once gets started, but he kind o' dreads the gittin' started."

When I beheld the ordeal through which Grandpa Keeler was called to
pass, at the hands of his faithful consort, before he was considered in
a fit condition of mind and body to embark for the sanctuary, I marveled
not at the old man's reluctance, nor that he had indeed seen clouds and
tempest fringing the horizon.

Immediately after breakfast, he set out for the barn, ostensibly to "see
to the chores;" really, I believe, to obtain a few moments' respite,
before worse evil should come upon him.

Pretty soon Grandma was at the back door calling in firm though
persuasive tones:

"Husband! husband! come in, now, and get ready."

No answer. Then it was in another key, weighty, yet expressive of no
weak irritation, that Grandma called "Come, pa! pa-a! pa-a-a!" Still no
answer.

Then that voice of Grandma's sung out like a trumpet, terrible with
meaning--"Bijonah Keeler!"

But Grandpa appeared not. Next, I saw Grandma slowly but surely
gravitating in the direction of the barn, and soon she returned,
bringing with her that ancient delinquent, who looked like a lost sheep
indeed and a truly unreconciled one.

"Now the first thing," said Grandma, looking her forlorn captive over;
"is boots. Go and get on yer meetin' gaiters, pa."

The old gentleman, having dutifully invested himself, with those sacred
relics, came pathetically limping into the room.

"I declare, ma," said he; "somehow these things--phew! Somehow they
pinch my feet dreadfully. I don't know what it is,--phew! They're
dreadful oncomf'table things somehow."

"Since I've known ye, pa," solemnly ejaculated Grandma Keeler, "you've
never had a pair o' meetin' boots that set easy on yer feet. You'd ought
to get boots big enough for ye, pa," she continued, looking down
disapprovingly on the old gentleman's pedal extremities, which resembled
two small scows at anchor in black cloth encasements: "and not be so
proud as to go to pinchin' yer feet into gaiters a number o' sizes too
small for ye."

"They're number tens, I tell ye!" roared Grandpa nettled outrageously by
this cutting taunt.

"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma, soothingly; "if I had se