doin' well. But the young one's eyes is bad. None uv the
doctors thereabouts could do anythin' fur 'em. Took her to Boston;
nobody thar could do anythin'--said some of the European doctors were
the only ones that could do the job safely. Costs money goin' to Europe
an' payin' doctors--I couldn't make it to hum in twenty year; so I come
here."

"Only child?" inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two
Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.

The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was
so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made
him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom:

"Only child of my only darter."

"Father dead?" inquired Tom Dosser.

"Better be," replied the deacon, bitterly. "He left her soon after they
were married."

"Mean skunk!" said Tom, sympathetically.

"I want to judge as I'd _be_ judged," replied the deacon; "but I feel ez
ef I couldn't call that man bad enough names. Hesby was ez good a gal ez
ever lived, but she went to visit some uv our folks at Burlington, an'
fust thing I know'd she writ me she'd met this chap, and they'd been
married, an' wanted us to forgive her; but he was so good, an' she loved
him so dearly."

"Good for the gal," said Tom, and a murmur of approbation ran through
the crowd.

"Of course, we forgave her. We'd hev done it ef she married Satan
himself," continued the deacon. "But we begged her to bring her husband
up home, an' let us look at him. Whatever was good enough for _her_ to
love was good enough for us, and we meant to try to love Hesby's
husband."

"Done yer credit, deacon, too," declared Tom, and again the crowd
uttered a confirmatory murmur. "Ef some folks--deacons, too--wuz ez
good--But go ahead, deac'n."

"Next thing we heard from her, he had gone to the place he was raised
in; but a friend of his, who went with him, came back, an' let out he'd
got tight, an' been arrested. She writ him right off, beggin' him to
come home, and go with her up to our place, where he could be out of
temptation an' where she'd love him dearer than ever."

"Pure gold, by thunder!" ejaculated Tom, while a low "You bet," was
heard all over the room.

Tom's eyes were in such a condition that he thought the deacon's were
misty, and the deacon noticed the same peculiarities about Tom.

"She never got a word from him," continued the deacon; "but one of her
own came bac