end of the triangle is the great pine mast
that graced no frigate of George's, but flew the stars and stripes on
many a liberty day. Across the road is Jonah Winch's store, with a
platform so high that a man may step off his horse directly on to it;
with its checker-paned windows, with its dark interior smelling of coffee
and apples and molasses, yes, and of Endea rum--for this was before the
days of the revivals.

How those checker-paned windows bring back the picture of that village
green! The meeting-house has them, lantern-like, wide and high, in three
sashes--white meeting-house, seat alike of government and religion, with
its terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south. Behind it
is the long shed, and in front, rising out of the milkweed and the
flowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where many
a pillion has left its burden in times bygone. Honest Jock Hallowell
built that second meeting-house--was, indeed, still building it at the
time of which we write. He had hewn every beam and king post in it, and
set every plate and slip. And Jock Hallowell is the man who, unwittingly
starts this chronicle.

At noon, on one of those madcap April days of that Coniston country, Jock
descended from his work on the steeple to perceive the ungainly figure of
Jethro Bass coming toward him across the green. Jethro was about thirty
years of age, and he wore a coonskin cap even in those days, and trousers
tacked into his boots. He carried his big head bent forward, a little to
one aide, and was not, at first sight, a prepossessing-looking person. As
our story largely concerns him and we must get started somehow, it may as
well be to fix a little attention on him.

"Heigho!" said Jock, rubbing his hands on his leather apron.

"H-how be you, Jock?" said Jethro, stopping.

"Heigho!" cried Jock, "what's this game of fox and geese you're a-playin'
among the farmers?"

"C-callate to git the steeple done before frost?" inquired Jethro,
without so much as a smile. "B-build it tight, Jock--b-build it tight."

"Guess he'll build his'n tight, whatever it is," said Jock, looking after
him as Jethro made his way to the little tannery near by.

Let it be known that there was such a thing as social rank in Coniston;
and something which, for the sake of an advantageous parallel, we may
call an Established Church. Coniston was a Congregational town still, and
the deacons and dignitaries of that church we