the tail of the comet began to fade, and all of a
sudden its fiery eye went out of the sky.

Some of the villagers thought it had "burst," others that it had "burned
out." Betsy said: "Whatever it was, it was a humbug;" and the wisest man
in Whitefield could neither tell whence it came nor whither it went. One
thing, however, was certain: Farmer Lathem said that never, since his
orchard began to bear, had he gathered such a crop of apples as he did,
despite the drought, in the year of the great comet.

MRS. MEEKER.

BY E.H. ARR.

When I read of Roman matrons I always think of Mrs. Meeker. Her features
were marked, and her eyes of deepest blue. She wore her hair combed
closely down over her ears, so that her forehead seemed to run up in a
point high upon her head: Its color was of reddish-brown, and, I am
sorry to say, so far as it was seen, it was not her own. It was called a
scratch, and Betsy said Mrs. Meeker "would look enough sight better if
she would leave it off." Whether any hair at all grew upon Mrs. Meeker's
head was a great problem with the village children, and nothing could
better illustrate the dignity of this woman than the fact that for more
than thirty years the whole neighborhood tried in vain to find out.

PARSON MEEKER.

BY E.H. ARR.

Every Sunday he preached two long sermons, each with five heads, and
each head itself divided. After the fifthly came an application, with an
exhortation at its close. The sermons were called very able, or, more
often, "strong discourses." I used to think this was because Mrs. Meeker
had stitched their leaves fast together. Betsy said they were just like
Deacon Saunders's breaking-up plough, "and went tearing right through
sin." The parson, when I knew him, was a little slow of speech and dull
of sight. He sometimes lost his place on his page. How afraid I used to
be lest, not finding it, he should repeat his heads! He always brought
himself up with a jerk, however, and sailed safely through to the
application.

When that came, Benny almost always gave me a jog with his elbow or
foot. Once he stuck a pin into my arm, which made me jump so that Deacon
Saunders, who sat behind, waked up with a loud snort. The deacon was
always talking about the sermons being "powerful in doctrine." When
Benny asked Betsy what doctrines were, she told him to "let doctrines
alone;" that they were "pizen things, only fit for hardened old
sinners."

* * *