Other Main-Travelled Roads

racted" meetings at the Grove during December. Indeed, such was the pitiless intensity of his zeal th

sual manner; but they all wore a furtive, uneasy air, and their laughter was not quite genuine at its best, and died away altogether when they came near the schoolhouse, and they hardly recovered from the effects

like an assassin. No more games with the boys, no more poking the girls under the chin! When he asked for a chew of tobacco now it was with an ai

ntensely cold and still, so cold and still that the ring of the cold steel of the heavy sleigh, the snort of the horses, and the old man

on the "hind bob" of a wood-sleigh, on a couple of blankets.

ight," Bacon said at length. "The way you both 'tend out t' meetun' ou

ront part wa

n m' life. I b'lieve the whole thing is a lit

y s

nt thus fur, and he ain't likely to, if he don't shake

rning all he gets. Standing for two or three hours in his place nig

to Bradley Talcott and Douglas Radbourn the ne

e him. He must

rty and go out," sa

'll speak to

beautiful aisles of the snowy woods. A merry party of young people, who had no sense of sin to weigh them down. Even Radbourn and Lily joi

"town girls," who could not for the life of them take the thing seriously. The room was so littl

lting prayers of the brethren and the sonorous prayers of the Elder, with commendable gravity. Miss Graham w

and manner. His small gray eyes were like daggers unsheathed, and his small, round head took on a cat-like ferocity, as he strode to an

to the era of the medicin

s voice had now the tone of the implacable, vindictive judge. He gloated on the pictures that his words called up. By the power of his

igh wheat and chaff. Wheat goes into the Father's garner; chaff is blown to hell's devouring flame! I can see him now! He seizes a poor, damned, struggling soul by the neck, he holds him over the flamin

at a sinner fall terror-stricken seemed like a providential stroke of confirmatory evidence, and nearly a dozen other young people fell crying, whereat t

t aloud and spare not. Fall before him as dust to his feet!

fted face-a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held their breath-

a-bearun' down on the

flushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them with the

covered

gh for you, ne

ining the same d

yanked into heaven when I c'n slide into hell. Waal! I must

ering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings, Bacon's dry intonation brought them al

Bacon shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" And while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the

he name of Him who came bringi

eople looked at him curiously. The deacons nodded their heads to

on to Radbourn; "knocked the wind out o' h

ing but acknowledg

e Lord's meetin'," cried old Daddy Brown to

con was the d

just a

was so fooled in a man in my life. If I'd tell you what Pill said to me the other day, when we was in Ro

devil," said the old man, wil

rom it, and got out into the

such scenes as we have just seen are impossible." He lifted his hand in a lofty gesture. The light fell on his pale face and dark eyes. The girls were a little indignant and disposed to t

r the time in earnest; his imagination did see those horrors,-he was swept away by his own words. But when Bacon spoke, his dry tone and homely words brought everybody, preacher and all, back to the earth with a thump! Everybody saw, that af

Lily perceived that it had wider applicat

ng to-morrow," said Milton, with a s

l become of

ssured her, and Milton's clear tenor rang

moon, O si

you set

w day is

t is but