allowed. As to any jest on any holy day, that was, beyond all other
things, most abhorrent to their ideas of Christian duty. Life with them
was a continued strife against sin, cheered only by the hope of casting
off all earthly trammels at last, to enter upon one long, never-ending
Sabbath. And their Sabbath of idleness was more dreary than their
'week-day' of work.

Yet were they an humble, honest, and upright pair, walking purely before
God according to the light they had, and as highly respected and honored
in the community, that the fiat of the minister himself--and in those
days the minister's word was 'law and gospel' in the smaller New England
villages--was hardly more potent than that of Deacon Fletcher.

To this couple was born one son, and one only. Much as they mourned when
they saw their neighbors adding almost yearly to their groups of olive
branches, the Lord in his wisdom vouchsafed to them only this one child,
and they bowed meekly to the providence and tried to be content. Why his
father named the boy 'Jason,' no one could rightly tell; perhaps because
the fleece of his flocks had been truly fleece of gold to him; at all
events, thus was the child named, and in the strict rule of this
Christian couple was Jason reared.

It would be sad as well as useless to tell of the dreary winter-Sundays
in the cold meeting-house (it was thought a wicked weakness to have a
fire in a church then) through which he shivered and froze; of the
fearful sitting in the corner after the two-hours sermons and the
thirty-minutes prayers were done; of the utter absence of all cheerful
themes or thoughts on the holy days which they so straitly remembered to
keep; of the visions of sudden death, and the bottomless pit thereafter,
which haunted the child through long nights; of the sighing for green
fields and the singing of birds, on some summer Sundays, when the sun
was warm and the sky was fair; and the clapping of the old-fashioned
wooden seats, as the congregation rose to pray or praise, was sweeter
music than the blacksmith made who 'led the singing' through his nose.
It would be a dreary task to follow the boy through all this youthful
misery, and so I will let it pass. Doubtless all these things brought
forth their fruits when his day of freedom came. He was a large-framed,
full-blooded boy, with more than the usual allowance of animal spirits.
But his father was larger framed and tougher, and in his occasional
contests w