some account of him previous to his introduction to the reader on
the afternoon of the preparatory lecture. At the date of the
commencement of the narrative, he was already twenty-two years old. He
was the youngest of several children. His father was a highly
respectable man, who resided in Hampton, about fifteen miles from
Burnsville, and cultivated one of the most valuable farms in the county.
Mr. and Mrs. Meeker both had the reputation of being excellent people.
They were exemplary members of the church, and brought up their children
with a great deal of care. They were in every respect dissimilar. He was
tall, thin, and dark-complexioned; she was almost short, very fair, and
portly in appearance. Mr. Meeker was a kind-hearted, generous,
unambitious man, who loved his home and his children, and rejoiced when
he could see every body happy around him. He was neither close nor
calculating. With a full share of natural ability, he did not turn his
talents to accumulation, quite content if he made the ends of the year
meet.

Mrs. Meeker was a woman who never took a step from impulse. She had a
motive for every act of her life. Exceedingly acute in her judgments of
people, she brought her shrewdness to bear on all occasions. She was a
capital housekeeper, a most excellent manager, a pattern wife and
mother. I say, 'pattern wife and mother,' for she was devoted to her
husband's interests, which, to be sure, were equally her own; she made
every thing very comfortable for him indoors, and she managed
expenditures with an economy and closeness which Mr. Meeker was quite
incapable of. She looked after her children with unremitting care. They
were sent to better schools, and their associations were of a better
description than those of her neighbors. She took personal pains with
their religious culture. Although they were sent to Sunday-school, she
herself taught them the Catechism, the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer,
and the Sermon on the Mount, beside a great variety of Gospel hymns and
Bible-stories. But along with these excellent teachings they were
taught--what is apt to be taught in almost every family, to almost every
child--to regard appearances, to make the best possible show to the
world, to _seem_ what they ought to _be_; apparently a sort of short-cut
to goodness, but really a turnpike erected by the devil, which leads any
where rather than to the desired point. Mrs. Meeker was a religious
woman, scrupulous and exac