time,
still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language,
stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that
language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my
feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange,
strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he
said:

"And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God!
the peace! the peace!"

His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he
wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside
and inside, that he invoked.

Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend
down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which
wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that
sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown
spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'.

Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time
he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever
would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep
then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life.

Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells
seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all
excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin'
bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin'
it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to
tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and
tackled him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by
perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed
goes.

Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck.
And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added
to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal
of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of
tenderness and sweetness of nater.

A good sound man Deacon Garven wuz, a man who would cheat himself before
he would cheat a neighber. He wuz jest full of qualities that would
hender him from ever takin' a front part in a scandel and a tragedy.
Yes, if more men wuz like Deacon Garven the pages of the daily papers
would fairly suffer for rapi