for Benjamin. Her father, Jonathan Fryer, had moved from the
neighborhood of the meeting-house far up the river-side, where he found
better land for cultivation. He still held a strong church interest and
built for his family a small shed at the rear of the meeting-house. Here
they could warm themselves by a hearth fire before the service in the
unheated building and take a hot dinner before the long walk home.

Jane was now an energetic girl of ten. One February afternoon she rested
her bucket of water on the icy edge of the well as she watched her father
striding homeward down the hill slope. As he reached her, he picked up
the heavy bucket and entered the house, where his boy Tom was placing a
huge log on the fire, and his wife stood ready to fill the kettle with
water and hang it on the crane. Jane had followed her father and waited
with expectant silence until Jonathan Fryer announced--

"I am going to Boston!"

"Father!" exclaimed Tom.

"This winter?" asked his wife, while Jane embraced her dearly loved
father as if he were off for the moon. Boston was fifty-eight miles
away.

[Illustration]

"I have just attended town-meeting," he explained. "The sixty pounds
which we have pledged to Harvard College annually must be paid. There are
also town matters for consultation."

As it was February, Jonathan Fryer decided to travel on horseback by an
inland route to Boston.

During his absence, the family had cause for anxiety in the weather.
Storms and a moderating temperature were bad, for Jonathan Fryer had
frozen rivers to cross.

On the night of the second Saturday after his departure, he returned
weary and exhausted from a hard and perilous trip. Jane had spent many
hours watching for her father and was eager to make him comfortable. She
hung about him with every attention, and laughed when he nodded with
sleep.

"Father, you must go to bed, for if your head should tip like that in the
meeting-house, the cage would await you."

It had been decreed that the old wooden cage before the church door
should punish--"those who use tobacco or sleep during public exercise."

The next morning Jonathan Fryer arose aching in every limb. His family
begged him to break his custom of attending meeting, but his strong
spirit asserted itself, and he was ready at the usual time. With a basket
of dinner, the four started afoot at an early hour that they might be
well warmed before meeting.

Mr. Moody, famous for his lon