or making a remark.

"'It all comes back to me now,' says he at last. 'I thought I was living in the moon, with a superior race of human bein's; and this is the place, and you are the people.'

"It wasn't more than a couple of days before he began to pry around, and find fault, and grumble at the expense; and I saw there was danger of things relapsing into something like their former condition. So I took him one side, and talked to him.

"'Jedwort,' says I, 'you're like a man raised from the grave. You was the same as buried to your neighbors, and now they come and look at you as they would at a dead man come to life. To you, it's like coming into a new world, and I'll leave it to you now, if you don't rather like the change from the old state of things to what you see around you to-day. You've seen how the family affairs go on—how pleasant everything is, and how we all enjoy ourselves. You hear the piano, and like it; you see your children sought after and respected, your wife in finer health and spirits than you've ever known her since the day she was married; you see industry and neatness everywhere on the premises; and you're a beast if you don't like all that. In short, you see that our management is a great deal better than yours; and that we beat you even in the matter of economy. Now, what I want to know is this: whether you think you'd like to fall into our way of living, or return like a hog to your wallow.'

"'I don't say but what I like your way of livin' very well,' he grumbled.

"'Then,' says I, 'you must just let us go ahead, as we have been going ahead. Now's the time for you to turn about and be a respectable man, like your neighbors. Just own up, and say you've not only been out of your head the past four years, but that you've been more or less out of your head the last four-and-twenty years. But say you're in your right mind now, and prove it by acting like a man in his right mind. Do that, and I'm with you; we're all with you. But go back to your old dirty ways, and you go alone. Now I sha'n't let you off till you tell me what you mean to do.'

"He hesitated some time, then said, 'Maybe you're about right, Stark; you and Dave and the old woman seem to be doin' pooty well, and I guess I'll let you go on.'"

Here my friend paused, as if his story was done; when one of the villagers asked, "About the land where the old meetin'-house stood—what ever was done with that?"

"That was appropriated for a new school-house; and there my little shavers go to school."

"And old Jedwort, is he alive yet?"

"Both Jedwort and his wife have gone to that country where meanness and dishonesty have a mighty poor chance—where the only investments worth much are those recorded in the Book of Life. Mrs. Jedwort was rich in that kind of stock; and Jedwort's account, I guess, will compare favorably with that of some respectable people, such as we all know. I tell ye, my friends," continued my fellow-traveler, "there's many a man, both in the higher and lower ranks of life, that 't would do a deal of good, say nothing of the mercy 'twould be to their families, just to knock 'em on the head, and make Nebu-chadnezzars of 'em—then, after they'd been turned out to grass a few years, let 'em come back again, and see how happy folks have been, and how well they have got along without 'em.

"I carry on the old place now," he added. "The younger girls are married off; Dan's a doctor in the North Village; and as for Dave, he and I have struck ile. I'm going out to look at our property now."