for the pleasure they take in recommending their teas, and plasters, and nostrums. The more frail and attenuated the teacher, the more he takes hold upon their pity; and in losing the vigor of the flesh, he seems to their compassionate eyes to grow into the spiritualities they pine for. But he must not give over his visitings; that hair-cloth shirt of penance he must wear to the end, if he would achieve saintship.
Now, just at this crisis, it happens that there is a tall, thin, pale young man—Rev. Theophilus Catesby by name, and nephew of the late Deacon Simmons (now unhappily deceased)—who has preached in Ashfield on several occasions to the "great acceptance" of the people. Talk is imminent of naming him colleague to Dr. Johns. The matter is discussed, at first, (agreeably to custom,) in the sewing-circle of the town. After this, it comes informally before the church brethren. The duty to the Doctor and to the parish is plain enough. The practical question is, how cheaply can the matter be accomplished?
The salary of the good Doctor has grown, by progressive increase, to be at this date some seven hundred dollars a year,—a very considerable stipend for a country parish in that day. It was understood that the proposed colleague would expect six hundred. The two joined made a somewhat appalling sum for the people of Ashfield. They tried to combat it in a variety of ways,—over tea-tables and barn-yard gates, as well as in their formal conclaves; earnest for a good thing in the way of preaching, but earnest for a good bargain, too.
"I say, Huldy," said the Deacon, in discussion of the affair over his wife's fireside, "I wouldn't wonder if the Doctor 'ad put up somethin' handsome between the French girl's boardin', and odds and ends."
"What if he ha'n't, Tourtelot? Miss Johns's got property, and what's she goin' to do with it, I want to know?"
On this hint the Deacon spoke, in his next encounter with the Squire upon the street, with more boldness.
"It's my opinion, Squire, the Doctor's folks are pooty well off, now; and if we make a trade with the new minister, so's he'll take the biggest half o' the hard work of the parish, I think the old Doctor 'ud worry along tol'able well on three or four hundred a year; heh, Squire?"
"Well, Deacon, I don't know about that;—don't know. Butcher's meat is always butcher's meat, Deacon."
"So it is, Squire; and not so dreadful high, nuther. I've got a likely two-year-old in the yard, that'll dress abaout a hundred to a quarter, and I don't pretend to ask but twenty-five dollars; know anybody that wants such a critter, Squire?"
With very much of the same relevancy of observation the affair is bandied about for a week or more in the discussions at the society-meetings, with danger of never coming to any practical issue, when a wiry little man—in a black Sunday coat, whose tall collar chafes the back of his head near to the middle—rises from a corner where he has grown vexed with the delay, and bursts upon the solemn conclave in this style:—
"Brethren, I ha'n't been home to chore-time in the last three days, and my wife is gittin' worked up abaout it. Here we've bin a-settin' and a-talkin' night arter night, and arternoon arter arternoon for more 'n a week, and 'pears to me it 's abaout time as tho' somethin' o' ruther ought to be done. There's nobody got nothin' agin the Doctor that I've heerd of. He's a smart old gentleman, and he's a clever old gentleman, and he preaches what I call good, stiff doctrine; but we don't feel much like payin' for light work same as what we paid when the work was heavy,—'specially if we git a new minister on our hands. But then, brethren, I don't for one feel like turnin' an old hoss that's done good sarvice, when he gits stiff in the j'ints, into slim pastur', and I don't feel like stuffin' on 'em with bog hay in the winter. There's folks that dooz; but I don't. Now, brethren, I motion that
