at a time soon after 1635. This particular passage is strictly personal; but if we take Oliver for the typical Puritan, as well as for Cromwell, and there is no forcing the meaning in doing this, — then, it becomes admirably illustrative of the temper of the times.

“Sim. What joyful throat

Is that, Aminadab? What is the meaning of this cry?

Amin. — The rebel is taken.
Sim. Oliver, the Puritan?

Amin. Oliver, Puritan and fustian-weaver altogether.

Sim.-Fates, I thank you for this victorious day;

Bonfires of pease-straw burn, let the bells ring. Glow. There's two in mending, and you know they count.

Sim.-'Las, the tenor's broken! ring out the treble.

Oliv.-Oh, tyranny, tyranny, revenge it tribulation!

For rebels there are many deaths, but sure the only way

To execute a Puritan is seeing of a play.
Oh, I shall swound!

Sim. Which if thou dost, to spite thee,
A player's boy shall bring thee aqua-vita.
[Enter first cheater.

Oliv. I die. Sim.--Peace, here's a rascal, list and edify. 1st Cheat. I say still he's an ass that cannot live by his wits.

- Oh, I'll not swoon at all for't, though

Sim. What a bold rascal's this?
He calls us all asses at first dash;
Sure none of us live by our wits, unless it be
Oliver, the Puritan.

Oliv. - I scorn as much to live by my wits
As the proudest of you all.
Sim.

Why, then you've an ass for company, So hold your prating."

Oliver's conjuring by Amsterdam means by way of that city, and there is implied in that connection a wholly uncomplimentary reference to the Puritans who were still residing in Holland. The last lines quoted show how a double construction is put upon his words. If we go back and read as an invocation,

“O Devil, I conjure thee by Amsterdam!" we get at one of the meanings of the line.

Thomas Fuller, himself a worthy who wrote of English worthies, was loyal to the king; but he could not conceal from his hearers the danger England ran of losing the better part of her population. This may seem a strong way of putting the case, but who can read his sermon on "The Fear of Losing the Old Light," preached before the corporation of Exeter in 1646, and not feel that the matters of which he then spoke had, to his view at least, assumed vital importance to the nation. This sermon was not merely a review of the action of the Come-outers who followed the New Light in their spiritual course, but it was a square look at the broad fact that the Colonies were being strengthened, and England was being weakened at precisely equal pace. Fuller is delightful in his sermons as he is elsewhere, and we can keep along with him over a portion of this discourse.

Speaking of missionary enterprise in his day, the preacher characteristically remarks,

"I have not heard of many fish (understand me in a mystical sense) caught in New England. *** The fault is not in the religion, but in the professors of it, that of late we have been more unhappy in killing of Christians than happy in converting of Pagans."

Alluding to the favorable inclination of the Gospel "to verge westward," he

says:

"This putteth us in some hopes of America, in God's due time; God knows what good effects to

them our sad war may produce; some may be frighted therewith over into those parts (being more willing to endure American than English savages), or out of curiosity to see, necessity to live, frugality to gain, may carry religion over with them into this barbarous country. Only God forbid we should make so bad a bargain as wholly to exchange our Gospel for their gold, our Saviour for their silver, fetch thence lignum vitae and deprive ourselves of the tree of life in lieu thereof. May not their planting be our supplanting, their founding in Christ, our confession; let them have of our light, not all our light; let their candle be kindled at ours, ours not removed to them."

To pursue this course of reading further would result simply in accumulating more evidence of the same general character. Enough has already been given

to show the relations between the early colonists and the mother country. If we were to continue on the same line of reading down to the time of American Independence, we should find that this event grew steadily, by a natural process of development, out of the antipathies prevailing a hundred and fifty years before its time. It is in ways like this, in showing itself as a mirror of the time to which it belongs, that general literature. most urgently claims our attention and our interest. In the drama and the songs of men, no less than in their sermons and their speeches, are reflected the life and the growth of all human history.

HEN Eleazar Ring, the handsome young carpenter, died from an accident encountered while helping a neighbor move a building, everybody pitied the young widow, who was left with her two little children to fight her way through the world. A smaller measure of sympathy overflowed upon his bright-eyed young half-sister, Eunice, who by the stroke was left, at the age of fifteen, homeless and dependent.

Eleazar had taken her from a home in which there were many mouths to fill, and his father was old. He said:

"She has been more like a daughter than a sister to me, ever since she was born. Let her come to me. I have a good trade, and she shall never want for anything."

In the midst of the girl's grief for the loss of her brother, she never thought of blaming sister Dosia for considering her a burden in spite of her constant service in the household. But after she had eaten the bitter bread of dependence for

a few months, Mrs. Squire Ellsworth, whose husband kept the store and Post Office at Fairmount Centre, twenty miles away, came to ask if she would go and live with her, and Eunice thankfully said "yes."

She took the place of an adopted. daughter in the squire's household, and was never allowed to feel the difference between her own claim there, and that of the young Ellsworths. The spring she was nineteen years old, Mrs. Ellsworth said one day:

66

Eunice, they want a teacher at the North End this summer. Mr. Clarke spoke to father about you yesterday, when he brought in the butter. I think I can manage to spare you if you want to go. Ann and Sally ought to be doing a little more housework."

Mr. Clarke was serving his first term as Prudential Committee man in his district. He had some acquaintance with Eunice; the inhabitants of a country town in New England must needs know each other, when all the tribes went up to worship at the same temple. If he had come to feel any particular interest in the damsel,

he had made no sign. He called a few days later, and a bargain was made. Eunice was to begin the school on the first Monday in May, receiving four and sixpence (seventy-five cents) per week for her services, and continuing as long as the district money held out.

Six weeks before the opening of our story, she was duly installed as school ma'am in district number nine. She boarded round, stopping the first week at the home of the committee-man. He, by virtue of his office, had once visited the school, on the opening week, quite unequally sharing the honors of the day with the minister, whose duty it was to visit the different school districts at that time, and see that the machinery was in running order.

The day of the minister's advent was an occasion of delight mingled with awe, to the children of two generations ago in New England. He was reverenced by them as a superior being. The sight of his chaise in the distance, at recess time, was the signal for them to leave their play, form into line, and "make their manners," as he rode solemnly past.

The visit to the school always closed with "remarks" and prayer; and many gray-haired children of to-day retain a vivid picture of a venerable form standing behind the teacher's desk, while the sunlight from the bare windows glorified the worn and whittled benches of the old schoolroom. After this time, unless there was serious trouble in the school, the minister was seen no more until the final examination day.

It was nearly four o'clock on a warm afternoon in June. The restless feet of the children kept time to the motion of the flies on the window panes, while through the open door floated the fragrance of Farmer Elder's clover-field. A whitefaced bumble bee, which had dropped in to exchange a friendly buzz with the drones in the red hive, had been caught and imprisoned in a hollyhock by a boy on the seat nearest the door, who at intervals stimulated its smothered rage to a deeper bass, by a snap of his fingers.

The schoolhouse was set within a few feet of the dusty highway, having near it "neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any

weather at all." A patch of tall Canadian thistles grew on the south side, which at blossom time lured the bees and butterflies, and caused the bare feet of the children to suffer tortures in pursuit of the restless rovers. The west window opened into a pasture which had been forbidden ground to the youngsters ever since one of them had spent half the night in a tree within the enclosure, by reason of the persistent attentions of a belligerent young animal beneath.

The schoolma'am was engaged in endeavoring to impress upon the mind of George Brown, in the A B C class, the difference between O and I, and failed to notice an unusual stir in the room, as at length, closing the spelling-book, she said:

"Now, say your verse."

The child straightened up, and began to take an interest in things, as he repeated in a shrill voice :

"Little David with his sling,

At Go-li-er he did fling,
Hit Go-li-er on the head,

Great Go-li-er fell down— dead!"

Ann Maria Churchill giggled as the boy hastily resumed the perpendicular after illustrating the manner of the giant's downfall, his movements being hastened by the appearance of a young man with a wooden measure in his hand, who vaulted lightly over the wall near the schoolhouse, while half a score of young animals, eager for the salt which it had contained, followed close behind.

an

"Committee-man's coming!" nounced the giggling girl to her companion in a loud whisper, as the young farmer deposited his salt-dish on a flat stone, and knocked at the open door.

"Good afternoon, Miss Ring. Our folks wanted me to stop and tell you that they expect you next week," he explained, standing somewhat uneasily under the gaze of a dozen pairs of eyes.

"Will you walk in? We are just going to spell round," she ventured.

Nothing loath, he accepted the invitation. The youth were made to pass in order before him, till the spelling was accomplished, and the shadow on the west window-sill marked four o'clock. Then school was dismissed. A shout

rent the air. The urchins who had kept oid Adam in subjection by a tremendous effort for the past half hour burst forth with the imprisoned bumble bee, which, being at last released by his tormentor, sailed away on an afternoon sunbeam to join his kindred in the thistle patch. When the shouts had died away in the distance, Jotham and Eunice set out towards the teacher's boarding-place.

At Widow More's gate they parted, Jotham going half a mile further to his own home, a tiny brown farmhouse lodged like a bird's nest in a dimple between the hills, overshadowed by a tall butternut tree which dropped its fruit upon the roof in autumn, while a maple grove on the north kept the wind from the dwelling in winter. From the spare-room windows one could look away over the blue hills which formed the last link in a grand mountain chain, whose peaks further north, formed Graylock and his brethren. The low roof had sheltered many generations of the family of which Jotham was the last to bear the name. An old book has come down to the present time, bound in leather, bearing date "1729," entitled "A Token for Mourners," by John Flavel, in which is inscribed:

This

"Aaron Clark

His Book God give Him grace theirin to Look that he may run the blessed race that Heaven may be his Dwelling place." Jotham's great-grandfather. His father died when the lad was sixteen, leaving him to carry on the farm, with the aid and counsel of his mother, a woman of great thrift and management. His half-sister, Silence, with her wonderful brown hair and sympathetic eyes, had faded like a snowdrop, and quickly followed her father.

Made painfully bashful by reason of his secluded life, the boy had served his time as a pupil in the red schoolhouse, where for many winters, until he was called up higher, old Master Taylor had held the rod of authority over the boys and girls, bringing it down alike upon the heads of the evil and the good.

His son Simeon was as Jonathan to

this lonely David, and their souls were knit together as brethren. They sat on the same hard, backless bench; they wrote in fair, round hand in their homemade writing-books:

"Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll;

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." They did sums by algebra without knowing it, naming the process the Rule of Supposition; and, better spellers than ancestor Aaron, spelled Perry's Dictionary through from cover to cover at the evening spelling schools without missing a word. Jotham was the elder by two years, and the adviser and confidant of his companion.

Jotham had a tenor voice, clear and resonant as that of the bell-bird, whose evening song echoed through the maple grove hard by his home, while Simeon sang a good bass. Many happy winter evenings were spent by the two youths in the kitchen of the brown farmhouse, with fiddle and home-made bass viol, on which they were wont to play skilfully. Sometimes even patient "Aunt Darkis," as the neighbors called her, was fain to tie her wide-bordered cap more closely over her ears, when Cousin Jemima joined in the harmony, uplifting her voice like a pelican in the wilderness, while she quavered through old "Majesty" and "Sherburne."

Jemima was an old-maid relative, who was wont to sojourn from time to time with Aunt Dorcas, assisting with the spinning and other household duties, her tall, erect figure showing in marked contrast to her aunt, who was bent and bowed.

After school days were over, Simeon became a clerk in 'Squire Ellsworth's store, at the Centre, three miles away, where he sold cotton cloth and molasses and divers and sundry other commodities, and boarded in the 'squire's family. was generally thought to be a great advancement over plodding farm life.

This

There had been nothing of importance in the conversation between Jotham and his companion during the short walk to Widow More's, but the light that was never on sea or land shone in the young man's honest gray eyes as he lifted them to the June sky, and the story older than

the granite hills which encompassed his home was writing itself upon his heart.

The schoolhouse was left to vacation quiet for two weeks in July, that the older scholars might spread hay and "rake after." Then the swarm again settled, and the buzz of study and mischief went on as before, while the brighteyed teacher reigned as queen bee and kept the hive in order.

The "boarding round," then a distinctive feature of district school-keeping, often brought Eunice to the home of the Prudential Committee-man, for it was expected that this officer should provide a home for the teacher whenever, in her weekly revolutions through the district, she came to be entertained by a family whose poverty was in direct proportion to the number of children of teachable age which it contained, meaning from three years old and upward. So when Jim Robinson's turn came, with his family of five olive plants, his few unproductive acres, and a shiftless wife to mismanage the home, kind Aunt Dorcas said, "I guess the teacher'd better come and board out the Robinson's time here."

Her son warmly approved the suggestion. He was a devout believer in Providence. He had been tumbled up and down in his mind, seeking some way by which he could see the fair damsel oftener, and surely this was a direct interference in his behalf. Jim's home was the abode of unthrift and discomfort, while his mother and Cousin Jemima were immaculate housekeepers, and the farm produced good store of creature comforts.

Nowhere else was such an orchard, with fruit as golden as that guarded of old by the Hesperides, while the garden yielded all manner of herbs and vegetables after their kind. Peace and plenty reigned in the farmhouse. How its master blessed the Providence which had filled the poor man's quiver with the poor man's blessing! Each tow-headed urchin represented an added week of the girl's presence under his own roof.

The whole atmosphere of that summer of summers was full of unwritten poetry to the young farmer. There were walks in the twilight in the old-fashioned

garden where the hollyhocks nodded their wise heads to each other over the gate, and the striped grass under the lilac bush held up its shining blades, tempting the two into bewildering proximity as they searched in vain for a matched pair.

When the dew fell too heavily, the garden was abandoned for the great flat stone doorstep. The robin in the tree overhead would stir softly in her nest, hearing through her midsummer night's dream two young voices blending in sweet accord as they sang Addison's noble ode :

"Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole."

When Cousin Jemima's step was heard in the kitchen, as she wound the clock and set the bread for the morrow's baking, Eunice would flutter like a belated bird to her nest under the eaves, while Jotham would take his happy heart for a walk in the orchard, from whence he could see the twinkling of her candle through the trees for a few minutes. Then all would be dark, save in his heart, where the light of love shone like a bright star. He could only whisper the secret to the night breezes and the motherly robin.

All too soon the bright summer passed. Examination day was over, with its array of delighted parents and august schoolcommittee. The young teacher looked worried. It was a trying ordeal for her, no doubt. At last the guests had departed, the children had received their simple gifts, and said their tearful goodbys. Already the schoolroom was taking on a mournful look amid the fading glories of maple branches and fall marigolds, with which the older girls had covered the cracks in its plastered sides.

Jotham unhitched Whitefoot from a post by the door. He was to take the teacher home, another duty of the Prudential Committee-man, and the last that would devolve upon him. Surely never were duties made sweeter in the pathway