But subsequent events brought the affairs of these two damsels in closer
connection with those of Deacon Enos, as we shall proceed to show.

It happened that the next door neighbor of Deacon Enos was a certain old
farmer, whose crabbedness of demeanor had procured for him the name of
_Uncle Jaw_. This agreeable surname accorded very well with the general
characteristics both of the person and manner of its possessor. He was
tall and hard-favored, with an expression of countenance much resembling
a north-east rain storm--a drizzling, settled sulkiness, that seemed to
defy all prospect of clearing off, and to take comfort in its own
disagreeableness. His voice seemed to have taken lessons of his face, in
such admirable keeping was its sawing, deliberate growl with the
pleasing physiognomy before indicated. By nature he was endowed with one
of those active, acute, hair-splitting minds, which can raise forty
questions for dispute on any point of the compass; and had he been an
educated man, he might have proved as clever a metaphysician as ever
threw dust in the eyes of succeeding generations. But being deprived of
these advantages, he nevertheless exerted himself to quite as useful a
purpose in puzzling and mystifying whomsoever came in his way. But his
activity particularly exercised itself in the line of the law, as it was
his meat, and drink, and daily meditation, either to find something to
go to law about, or to go law about something he had found. There was
always some question about an old rail fence that used to run "a
_leetle_ more to the left hand," or that was built up "a _leetle_ more
to the right hand," and so cut off a strip of his "_medder land_," or
else there was some outrage of Peter Somebody's turkeys getting into his
mowing, or Squire Moses's geese were to be shut up in the town pound, or
something equally important kept him busy from year's end to year's end.
Now, as a matter of private amusement, this might have answered very
well; but then Uncle Jaw was not satisfied to fight his own battles, but
must needs go from house to house, narrating the whole length and
breadth of the case, with all the _says he's_ and _says I's_, and the _I
tell'd him's_ and _he tell'd me's_, which do either accompany or flow
therefrom. Moreover, he had such a marvellous facility of finding out
matters to quarrel about, and of letting every one else know where they,
too, could muster a quarrel, that he generally succeeded in k