In a Little Town

life. There were no debtors to be harassed, no creditors to harass them. They paid cash for everything-at least

ew too shabby for so nice a man as a bookkeeper is apt to be. He did not drink or

asket on Sundays; so much for the butcher; so much for the grocer; so much for

orium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. As Ed

-five dollars survived the thirty days' demands. Still, there was always something for the savings-bank,

t were to be. The fund had ample time for accret

age. And nobody knew how fiercely they yearned. No

that he kept it up, for he liked a joke as well as the next fellow. Before people, of course, she was "Pheeny," and, on very

ke or a hunk of the "cokernut," but he got no farther. Nobody noticed it; but Eddie and

The amusements of the couple were petty-an occasional church sociable was society; a revival period

vening paper, which a boy threw on the porch in a twisted boomerang every afternoon,

hool paper and an occasional book from the Sunday-school library, mainly about children whose angelic qualities gave her

their evenings ceased to be devoted to riddles in finance, they had resolved to read the Bible through, "from kiv

romance of Abram, who became Abraham, and of Sarai, who became Sarah. It was very exciting when the child was promised to

ing matter. These poignant hopes and awful denials and perilous adventures are not permitted to be wr

reathed hard and looked askance, and made sure that no one overheard.

neighbors never knew of the merciless joke Fate played on them when, in their ignorance, they believed the Lo

peevish Doctor Noxon; and he laughed her hopes away and inf

hadow of this great denial, each telling the other that it did

ayor's wife in childbed and the death of the minister's son in disgrace; but, tho