"What were you on the top of the Elm House for, then?" I asked,
sarcastically. "I wouldn't like to be in your shoes the next time Enoch
gets his eye on you."

"If he touches me, I'll fix him!" cried Halstead, wrathfully. "And I'll
slap you, too, if you don't keep still," he added, giving me a kick
under the bedspread, which I did not quite dare to resent, and so turned
over to the wall and fell asleep.

Thus ended our first Fourth of July at the farm.

I must add a word here relative to Enoch's clothes, however. The effigy
hung there over the road for two days; but word had been sent to Enoch,
who lived in another town, and on the third day he made his appearance
for the purpose of reclaiming his garments; but meantime, either that
morning or the previous evening, the effigy was stolen, or at least
captured and carried off. The latter offense was finally traced to a
passing tin-peddler, who, when accused of it, declared that he had found
the image lying in the road, and deemed the clothes old togs, fit only
for paper rags and not worth advertising; he had therefore put them in
his cart and driven on. He was subsequently shown to have sold the suit,
not as paper rags; and when threatened with legal proceedings, he
settled the matter on Enoch's own terms.

On the first day of the "Cattle Show," or County Fair, that fall, Enoch
fell in with Alfred Batchelder, in the rear of the cattle sheds, and, to
make use of a phrase common among fighting characters, "wiped up the
ground with him"--not over clean ground, either--for a space of several
minutes. Our Halstead steered clear of him, however, and so far as I
know, never received his just deserts for his share in the
transaction,--which may, perhaps, be said to lie in the line of a remark
which Elder Witham was fond of making in his quaint sermon against the
Universalists. "Justice," quoth the Elder, "certainly does not get done
in this brief, imperfect life of ours. Many of the worst wrongs men do
us go unredressed in spite of our best efforts to square accounts with
them!"

I recollect, also, that as we had unharnessed old Sol in the wagon-house
that night and led him out, we noticed a great light in the sky, away to
the southward. It shone up high in the heavens, but was pale, as if a
long distance off. I asked Addison what he thought it could be, and he
said there must be a great fire somewhere in that direction. We thought
no more about it at the time; but toward ev