M OONLIGHT gave the Deacon's not what communings; or in rich, odor wife such dreams and illusions that she shut it out of her bedroom, although she remembered summer nights when she was younger and had loved to see a great moon hanging on balanced wings, like some mother creature brooding over the earth. She was suddenly wide awake with surprise, then, to find the light pouring in, and the Deacon sitting in it, his gray hair erect and shining like a crown, as he went over some papers, trying to decipher them in the gleam, and also trying to understand how two and two should make three instead of five, and to make out if by possibility he did not owe the parish so much as he had feared. At her startled exclamation he closed the shutter and crept back to his pillow. To this wife her husband was not only the best and first of men, but with so much of the ethereal in his composition that he seemed not so entirely human as heavenly. And if miracles could be wrought in these latter days, she would have expected him to work them or to have them worked for him. She had felt a deep reverence for him since the days when she had seen heaven in the fairhaired boy's eyes and its love in his heart; she had preserved the unbounded pride in him that she felt when he asked her to marry him; and since the hour he became a deacon she had never called him by his Christian name. She was a little creature, but, as a diamond holds the concentration of light, she in her energy was like a flame of fire. And while the Deacon was turning over the Elder's text in his mind and extracting its last honey, she was seeing to the practical side of things and keeping the Deacon's hands busy, wherever his thoughts might wander. Yet there were times when she suffered a sad loneliness-in the sunshine of those chill April days that fill the atmosphere with hope, when the Deacon was up in the hills by himself clearing the springs, and with she knew ous autumn days when he tramped the swamps, elated with the colors and the balms, singing his thoughts out loud and clear—the loneliness any woman marrying an angel might feel. She did not know how to express her blind sensation of being left outside her husband's inner life. And nothing quite atoned for that. But now and then she hid her few quick tears on the shaggy head of old Bose, and the dog looked at her afterwards with wistful eyes, as if wondering at her worry and assuring her he could keep a secret. 66 S'pose I see." Now, Drusy, w'en I can't! I guess 'twould take one o' them that counted times and times in Dan'l ter make them two thin's square." "Can't you count right, father?" ""Taint countin'. I can count, same's a clock. It's just here. There's that yoke o' noxen I bought. An' the bit o' lan' ter round out the big rye-field, and one thin' and another. And o' course I paid for them out 'n my own money. And my money's all gone. An' where's the perrish money? That's gone, too.” "Deacon!" "Yes. That's jes' w'at's occurred." "Ain't you put it somewheers, an' forgot?" "I've kep' it in the little right-han' dror of the sekertary this twenty year exceptin' for now and ag'in. 'Tain't likely I'd remove it. And I ain't!" "What has come of it, then ?" "Wisht you could tell me, Drusy.” "W'y ain't you spoke of it ?—I thinked you was spendin' more'n was likely." 720 "I couldn't spen' more'n I hed.” "Sell them steers? W'y, I need 'em! I've needed 'em like sixty this ten year, an' you gimme no peace till I got 'em. They're my proputty, 'lowin' ther's any sech thin' as property, seein' the 'arth is the Lord's." "There's a mistake been made, father. P'r'aps you thought 'twas your money—' "You s'pose I'm a fool, Drusilla? Or a thief?" And he sat up in his righteous indignation. His wife drew him gently down again, and held him in her arms, laying her head beside his own. "There, there," she said, "you go to sleep. Mebbe you'll dream it out. Anyway, you kin see things clearer by day." "There ain't nothin' ter see clear. It's jist here. I kind o' rekelek I put the perrish money away, I do' 'no' where. And, anyway, it ain't there. I was in hopes I could make it out from what I had, till it turned up. But I can't. An' now all to wunst Elder an' Deacon Hardin' an' them wants it for the bell they're ben lottin' on, an' the fence roun' the buryin'groun'-" "There ain't no need of a fence there. Nobody can't get out; an' there ain't nobody wants ter get in, as I've heerd say." "Cows," said the Deacon. dyed his coat, which he wore with a consciousness of being clothed fit for the society of skyey beings; and Judith trimmed her bonnet over with ribbons the neighbors had had time to forget, and Lauretta cobbled her shoes for Sunday, and John gathered birds' eggs which he sold to bad boys down in Salt Water. "I'd ben meanin'," said the Deacon, sadly, "ter git ye a summer bunnit, Drusy. But now, 'ith Hardin' a-doubtin' my word—” "Now, Deacon Wabbles, there ain't nobody a-doubtin' your word!" ""Tain't jes' my word. It's trust funds, Drusy. An' they're gone. And I ain't got enough o' my own to square up. If I can't find 'em-w'y, mother, them childern o' ourn 'll come to disgrace! Folks 'll p'int to 'em an' say their father— mother, I ain't took any o' that money! Don't you believe me, Drusy?" And he sat up in the bed again, his gray hair making a halo round his head and his tears streaming. "Believe ye?" she said. "Ye poor angel, don't I know ye couldn't do wrong no more'n a saint! You never said what warn't true in your life. You never did a thing 'twarn't straight. If the Lord loves a righteous man, he loves you." "You jest go ter perrish meetin' an' fall. fight that fence !" "I have." "An' ye won't fall. You'll be took care on, father. The Lord can't spare "Father, how long's this ben goin' you an' your example that way." on ?" "Fer quite some w'ile, Drusy." "An' ye never told me." And she rose and opened the shutters. There was no more sleep for her. "W'at's the use?" he said, on her return. "I was heckled enough for two. Anybody that didn't know me 'd say I'd spent the perrish money. But I couldn't 'a' done that no ways in the worl', ye see." "I see," said his wife. "But Hardin' won't see." If the Deacon was unable to command ready money, it was because he never could put anything by while others were in want, and his family felt his least wish must be gratified-certainly so righteous a wish. And so his wife turned her decent gown and returned it, and ripped and "Mother, mother, what a comfort you are!" And he lay back exhausted, and was asleep in a twinkling. And old Bose, on his mat beside the bed, beat taps with his tail, as if satisfied that all was right, even through a little sob which he rose to inquire into. "Now you look cheerful," said their mother to the girls, as they made breakfast ready, by the candle-light. They had waked in the night and had heard enough to make it necessary to tell them more, and their pretty faces were swollen with crying. "You put hot tea on your eyes. Father'd be distressed ter see ye a-feelin' so." "Oh, poor father, poor father !" Judith sobbed. "The saint alive, the old saint!" "It's dretfle !" cried Lauretta. "An' he the best man in meetin'!" And her tears were like sparks of fire. "It's jest goin' to shame us every one!" said Johnny. ""Tain't no use bein' honest w'en folks suspicions ye that way!" And, trying to be calm, he broke out crying aloud. "Folks ain't God," said his mother. "And God knows your father's honest down to the ground.” "He's honest up to the sky !" said Judith. "There," said the mother, "the cakes are a lovely brown. You'd better call father, Laurie." The Deacon ate his breakfast in silence when he came. As he finished, he pushed back his chair and stood up. "Lord," he said, lifting his wide-open eyes to the window, where the sunrise flame still lingered, "thou art our refuge in all generations. Thou hast said, Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I come. I leave this trouble here. Let me feel that an honest man stands before Thee." And his wife and his children sobbed, "Amen." As for the Deacon, there was only perfect peace on his white face. He went round and kissed his wife, a rare ceremony. "Now," he said brightly, "it's a good day for planting the corn, John, my son. It's no use a-talking-in this here climate the Lord won't bless the corn that's planted afore the apple blossoms sheds inter the hills." And he went out blithely as if he had not a care in the world. "It's up to God," said Johnny, who was reactionary and had been in Salt Water. and the tax-collector's approach, doubtless to talk concerning the missing parish funds. Well, if he could give them a kindlier feeling, he would be helping to lift those gates. "There ain't no good o' hushin' it up," said Deacon Harding, after the preliminary conversation; "truth will out. The money was trusted to Deacon Wabbles, and if he can't perduce it, where is it ?” Oh, he will produce it in time, I am sure," replied the Elder. "The Deacon may be a little confused. He'll clear it all up." 66 And he's slow. "So you said, Elder, three months ago. He's had time." "Eyther he's got the money, or he's spent it," said Cyrus Thomas, rattling the pennies in his pockets. ""T seems ter me somethin' 'd orter be done. It's bringin' reproach upon the meetin'." "Summer's coming," said Deacon Harding," and we need that bell. You can see for yourself, 'twould soun' pleasant summer evenin's, callin' ter the house o' prayer an' biddin' in them that wouldn't 'a' come otherways." "But that's hypothetical. And it isn't to be thought of—is it now?—beside the blasting of a good man's name," said the Elder. “I ain't denyin' he's led a toler❜ble good life-so fur," said the tax-collector, somewhat awed by the long word. "But tentations comes to all of us. He got his gels a seraphine last winter. I ain't ever felt called to git Sadie an organ.” "But he bought it that Judith might better sing her hymns. And don't you think Judith's voice in the singing seats is almost as well worth while as the sort of bell we would be able to buy?" ""Tain't the question," said Deacon Harding. "An' 'tain't the bell. It's the principle. If Deacon Wabbles has made away with our trust money, we'd orter know it, and have him dealt 'ith in meetin'." Across the woods the Elder was putting up his rails that a deer had disturbed. He had thought, as he saw the sunrise while coming along, that David first sang the twenty-fourth Psalm when a boy keeping his flocks on the hill at some splendid break of day, and he was singing to a tune of his own, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in," for in this remote settlement, apart from the stir of the world, its complexities and distractions, the thought still concerned itself, as in days past, with the "Wal," said Deacon Harding, "mebbe mighty things of the unseen. He was you're right, Elder. You'd orter be, brought back to earth by Deacon Harding's havin' studied inter sech thin's more'n us. "The Lord loves a merciful man," said the Elder. the Elder. "If the case were reversed, and either of us in straits, Deacon Wabbles would be long-suffering. I think we'd better wait." Deacon is slow, 's you say. P'r'aps he ain't took it all in yet. What say, Mr. Thomas?" "We've got a duty ter the perrish," said Mr. Thomas, still rattling his pennies. "However, I'd hate ter hurt Mis' Wabbles's feelin's. An', 's you say, p'r'aps we—we —” "Won't be too precipitate," said the Elder. Jes' so. But, Elder, sooner or later that money's gotter be 'counted for. Some on it's mine!" 66 The Elder was walking in his wife's little garden patch that evening while she sowed her mignonette seeds. "It is discouraging,” he said. It makes me feel my work idle and unblessed when two of my people are so ready to destroy another." "For my strength is made perfect in weakness," said his wife, softly. "It is not impossible," the Elder said presently, "that while the Deacon was walking with his head in the clouds he set his feet in the bog. He is so occupied in the courts of heaven that he forgets the things of earth." This from the Elder! thought his wife. "But he was very unhappy when I saw him last, the poor good man!" said the Elder. Yet his wife hadn't the first doubt all would come right. That's a great help. What wonderful things wives are! And her price is above rubies." 66 It was quite dusk when the Elder's wife rose, dusting the earth from her fingers. "Well," she said, "if that money has been spent, I don't see how anything but a miracle can replace it." 66 What then?" said the Elder, gazing at the evening star, that through the gently swaying branches seemed like a great golden spirit winging its way towards earth. "What then? Can't we think there are laws that are deeper, swifter, subtler, mightier, than those we know, that can produce what we call the miraculous? Miracle or no miracle, it stands to reason that for a man who lives so near heaven the heavenly forces ought to be engaged." And the Elder's prayer that night dealt with the heavenly forces very pleadingly. The buds on the orchard boughs were like points of light against the dark forest the next morning. The rosy snow of apple blossoms blew about; the world seemed full of hope and promise. The Elder's wife sat sewing on the porch with Miss Melissa. "Yes, it means a sight to me," Miss Melissa was saying. "It means longings. It means tears. Yes, Mis' Perry, tears," glancing about anxiously. "Elder ain't 'roun'-fixin' his remarks? Talks 'temp'ry, now I mind. Fetches ye nearer, mebbe. Though once in a w'ile a good thirteenthly stirs ye up. P'ints ter dispute." Miss Melissa was a personage in the Settlement. She had bought her small place with what was left of her father's property, and she had sowed and threshed and grown brown as a berry and spare as a tree's stem. She sold eggs, herbs, snake-skins, curious fungi; she lived on next to nothing, and she saved now and then a dollar. When she should have saved a hundred dollars, she used to think, she would have a little all-sorts shop. She had kept her money about her, and in hot midsummer she talked of the deceitfulness of riches and longed to spend hers. "Yes, in them days I thought I'd like ter run down ter Salt Water an' see the stores," she said. "I thought I'd like some preachin', too-'twas afore Elder come. I thought I'd like to susscribe an' take the 'Farmer' all to myself, 'stid o' having it 'ith the neighbors, an' gittin' it worn an' crumpled, 'ith the news all read out of it. I thought, yes, I did, I'd go to the circus. Ever been? Script'ral an' Biblical show, ye know, camels an' cameleopards an' behemoths; an' if the women-folks rides pecooler, that ain't the fault o' the critters. I'm boun' ter say I like to see w'at's goin' on, so long as it's goin' on! WunstI'll tell the hull truth-I did think of a black silk gownd. I got so far as to hear myself a-rustlin' in it Sabbaths. But I didn't purchase. And at last I had a hunderd dollars. A hunderd dollars ain't much, prob'bly, ter the eyes that sees all the gold o' the 'arth, an' where the Queen o' Sheby got hern. But 'twas a sight to me. And then-that's the way thin's happens to them that hath shall be given -my uncle over to Stowe up an'-passed away-an' lef' me-hm-hm-a comf'ble competency. An' there I was 'ith that |