Deacon Wells smiled grimly, and brought out the horse himself, taking great pains to tighten the saddle girth and shorten the stirrup leathers properly, before he gave the bridle into the boy's hand.
It wasn't the last time that black horse was sent for to go over the hill, and the result exhibited itself, in the course of a few months, in a pretty, white house, with a porch and dormer windows, standing in the greenest curve of the brook; a thicket of wild roses, only half shutting out a view of the water; ducks were swimming up and down the little stream, and a flock of hens running riot in the meadow grass. Besides this, a neat, little body, with the quaintest bonnet and neatest dress in the world, came into the meeting-house with the minister, who appeared in a new suit of black, separated from him in the broad aisle in front of the deacon's seat, and while he mounted the pulpit stairs, she turned into a side pew, and listened to his discourse, from beginning to end, with unbroken interest.
But it is the weakness of vestry-men to vote money which they have not the power to collect. The minister was married, and his house built, but a debt lay on it, which troubled him as only studious men can be troubled by monied claims.
The little wife came to his aid. She was a highly accomplished, well educated woman, who had earned her own living from early girlhood, and was not ashamed or afraid to help her husband in any womanly fashion that presented itself. She had plenty of room, good health, and a clear brain, all sources of usefulness, which she was prompt to put into action. Teaching was her business. If she could obtain a couple of boarding scholars into her own house, at city prices, the debts upon their home would soon be removed.
The dainty little housewife began to talk with her husband about the project one morning just as he was resolving the fifth head of his next sermon, at which time he never heard a syllable addressed to him by any mortal being, but always assented blandly to every thing proposed.
So, under the full conviction that he approved her plan, she wrote to a friend in New York, requesting her to aid in obtaining the desired pupils.
When his sermon was over, the minister received the news of this arrangement with considerable astonishment, but he submitted without protest, as the letter had already gone.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MINISTER'S WIFE TAKES PUPILS.
Bays Hollow stands on the very boundary line which separates Connecticut from New York. Half the valley was in one State, half in the other; but the minister's house, in fact the whole village, lay in Connecticut. Persons acquainted with the geography of that part of the country, will understand that the easiest mode of access to this place before railroads threw their iron belts from State to State, was by the Hudson river. Indeed, between New York and the minister's house, there was scarcely half a day's land travel, and that was easily accomplished in a stage-coach that ran twice a week from the river.