"Tom Dosser!" answered a dozen or more.

"That's him! Bless the Lord!" cried the deacon, and finding a seat, dropped into it, and buried his face in his hands.

For several moments there was a magnificent attempt at silence, but it utterly failed. The boys saw that the deacon and Tom were working a very large claim, and to the best of their ability they assisted.

Stumpy Flukes, under the friendly shelter of the bar, was able to fully express his feelings through his eyelids, but the remainder of the party, by taking turns at staring out the windows, and contemplating the bottles behind the bar, managed to delude themselves into the belief that their eyes were invisible. Finally, Tom arose. "Deacon--boys," he said, "I never got that letter. I wus afeard she'd hear about my scrape, so I wrote her all about it, ez soon ez I got sober, an' begged her to forgive me. An' I waited an' hoped an' prayed for an answer, till I growed desperate; an' came out here."

"She never heerd from you, Thomas," sighed the deacon.

"Deac'n," said Tom, "do you s'pose I'd hev kerried this for years"--here he drew out a small miniature of his wife--"ef I hadn't loved her? Yes, an' this too," continued Tom, producing a thin package, wrapped in oilskin. "There's the only two letters I ever got from her, an', just cos her hand writ 'em, I've had 'em just where I took 'em from for four years. I got 'em at Albany, 'fore I got on that cussed tare, an' they was both so sweet an' wifely, that I've never dared to read 'em since, fur fear that thinkin' on what I'd lost would make me even wuss than I am. But I ain't afeard now," said Tom, eagerly tearing off the oilskin, and disclosing two envelopes.

He opened one, took out the letter, opened it with trembling hands, stared blankly at it, and handed it to the deacon.

"Thar's my letter now--I got 'em in the wrong envelope!"

"Thomas," said the deacon, "the best thing you can do is to deliver that letter yourself. An' don't let any grass grow under your feet, ef you ken help it."

"I'm goin' by the first hoss I ken steal," said Tom.

"An' tell her I'll be along ez soon as I pan out enough," continued the deacon.

"An' tell her," said Boston Ben, "that the gov'nor won't be much behind you. Tell her that when the crowd found out how game the old man was, and what was on his mind, that the court was so ashamed of hisself that he passed around the hat for Pet's benefit, and"--here Boston Ben thoughtfully weighed the hat in his hands--"and that the apology's heavy enough to do Europe a dozen times; I know it, for I've had to travel myself occasionally."

Here he deposited the venerable tile with its precious contents on the floor in front of the deacon. The old man looked at it, and his eyes filled afresh, as he exclaimed:

"God bless you! I wish I could do something for you in return."

"Don't mention it," said Boston Ben, "unless--you--You _couldn't_ make up your mind to a match with English Sam, could you?"

"Come, boys," interrupted Stumpy Flukes; "its my treat--name your medicine--fill high--all charged?--now then--bottom up, to 'The meanest man at Blugsey's'!"

"That _did_ mean _you_, deacon!" exclaimed Tom; "but I claim it myself now, so--so I won't drink it."

The remainder of the crowd clashed glasses, while Tom and his father-in-law bowed profoundly. Then the whole crowd went out to steal horses for the two men, and had them on the trail within an hour. As they rode off, Stumpy Flukes remarked:

"There's a splendid shot ruined for life."

"Yes," said Boston Ben, with a deep sigh struggling out of his manly bosom, "an' a bully rassler, too. The Church has got a good deal to answer fur, fur sp'ilin' that man's chances."

[Illustration]

DEACON BARKER'S CONVERSION.

Of the several pillars of the Church at Pawkin Centre, Deacon Barker was by all odds the strongest. His orthodoxy was the admiration of the entire congregation, and the terror of all the ministers within easy driving distance of the Deacon's native village. He it was who had argued the late pastor of the Pawkin Centre Church into that state of disquietude which had carried him, through a few days of delirious fever, into the Church triumphant; and it was also Deacon Barker whose questions at the examination of seekers for the ex-pastor's shoes had cast such consternation into divinity-schools, far and near, that soon it was very hard to find a candidate for ministerial honors at Pawkin Centre.

Nor was his faith made manifest by words alone. Be the weather what it might, the Deacon was always in his pew, both morning and evening, in time to join in the first hymn, and on every Thursday night, at a quarter past seven in winter, and a quarter before eight in summer, the good Deacon's cane and shoes could be heard coming solemnly down the aisle, bringing to the prayer-meeting the champion of orthodoxy. Nor did the holy air of the prayer-meeting even one single evening fail to vibrate to the voice of the Deacon, as he made, in scriptural language, humble confessions and tearful pleadings before the throne, or--still strictly scriptural in expression--he warned and exhorted the impenitent. The contribution-box always received his sixpence as long as specie payment lasted, and the smallest fractional currency note thereafter; and to each of the regular annual offerings to the missionary cause, the Bible cause, and kindred Christian enterprises, the Deacon regularly contributed his dollar and his prayers.

The Deacon could quote scripture in a manner which put Biblical professors to the blush, and every principle of his creed so bristled with texts, confirmatory, sustentive and aggressive, that doubters were rebuked and free-thinkers were speedily reduced to speechless humility or rage. But the unregenerate, and even some who professed righteousness, declared that more fondly than to any other scriptural passage did the good Deacon cling to the injunction, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Meekly insisting that he was only a steward of the Lord, he put out his Lord's money that he might receive it again with usury, and so successful had he been that almost all mortgages held on property near Pawkin Centre were in the hands of the good Deacon, and few were the foreclosure sales in which he was not the seller.

The new pastor at Pawkin Centre, like good pastors everywhere, had tortured himself into many a headache over the perplexing question, "How are we to reach the impenitent in our midst!" The said impenitent were, with but few exceptions, industrious, honest, respectable, law-abiding people, and the worthy pastor, as fully impregnated with Yankee-thrift as with piety, shuddered to think of the waste of souls that was constantly threatening. At length, like many another pastor, he called a meeting of the brethren, to prayerfully consider this momentous question. The Deacon came, of course, and so did all the other pillars, and many of them presented their views. Brother Grave thought the final doom of the impenitent should be more forcibly presented; Deacon Struggs had an abiding conviction that it was the Man of Sin holding dominion in their hearts that kept these people away from the means of grace; Deacon Ponder mildly suggested that the object might perhaps be attained if those within the fold maintained a more godly walk and conversation, but he was promptly though covertly rebuked by the good Deacon Barker, who reminded the brethren that "it is the _Spirit_ that quickeneth"; Brother Flite, who hadn't any money, thought the Church ought to build a "working-man's chapel," but this idea was promptly and vigorously combated by all men of property in the congregation. By this time the usual closing hour had arrived, and after a benediction the faithful dispersed, each with about the ideas he brought to the meeting.

Early next morning the good Deacon Barker, with his mind half full of the state of the unconverted, and half of his unfinished cow-shed, took his stick and hobbled about the village in search of a carpenter to finish the incomplete structure. There was Moggs, but Moggs had been busy all the season, and it would be just like him to want full price for a day's work. Stubb was idle, but Stubb was slow. Augur--Augur used liquor, and the Deacon had long ago firmly resolved that not a cent of _his_ money, if he could help it, should ever go for the accursed stuff.

But there was Hay--he hadn't seen him at work for a long time--perhaps he would be anxious enough for work to do it cheaply.

The Deacon knocked at Hay's door, and Hay himself shouted:

"Come in."

"How are ye, George," said the Deacon, looking hastily about the room, and delightfully determining, from the patient face of sad-eyed Mrs. Hay and the scanty furnishing of the yet uncleared breakfast-table, that he had been providentially guided to the right spot. "How's times with ye?"

"Not very good, Deac'n," replied Hay. "Nothin' much doin' in town."

"Money's awful sceerce," groaned the Deacon.

"Dreadful," responded George, devoutly thanking the Lord that he owed the Deacon nothing.

"Got much to do this winter?" asked the Deacon.

"Not by a d--day's job--not a single day," sorrowfully replied Hay.

The Deacon's pious ear had been shocked by the young man's imperfectly concealed profanity, and for an instant he thought of administering a rebuke, but the charms of prospective cheap labor lured the good man from the path of rectitude.

"I'm fixin' my cow-shed--might p'raps give ye a job on't. 'Spose ye'd do it cheap, seein' how dull ev'ry thin' is?"

The sad eyes of Mrs. Hay grew bright in an instant. Her husband's heart jumped up, but he knew to whom he was talking, so he said, as calmly as possible:

"Three dollars is reg'lar pay."

The Deacon immediately straightened up as if to go.

"Too much," said he; "I'd better hire a common lab'rer at a dollar 'n a half, an' boss him myself. It's only a cow-shed, ye know."

"Guess, though, ye won't want the nails druv no less p'ticler, will ye, Deac'n?" inquired Hay. "But I tell yer what I'll do--I'll throw off fifty cents a day."

"Two dollars ort to be enough, George," resumed the Deacon.

"Carpenterin's pooty work, an' takes a sight of headpiece sometimes, but there's no intellec' required to work on a cow-shed. Say two dollars, an' come along."

The carpenter thought bitterly of what a little way the usual three dollars went, and of how much would have to be done with what he could get out of the cow-shed, but the idea of losing even that was too horrible to be endured, so he hastily replied:

"Two an' a quarter, an' I'm your man."

"Well," said the Deacon, "it's a powerful price to pay for work on a cow-shed, but I s'pose I mus' stan' it. Hurry up; thar's the mill-whistle blowin' seven."

Hay snatched his tools, kissed a couple of thankful tears, out of his wife's eyes, and was soon busy on the cow-shed, with the Deacon looking on.