This reception was wholly unexpected to poor Bub, and, as she relieved him of his ministerial vestments, he sobbed indignantly,–

“Now Bub go wite away, and never come back no more!” and, opening the door, he marched resolutely out.

The elderly caller had now the congenial duty to do of restoring the minister’s apparel to its proper place overhead; and, glancing out of the window, to be sure nobody was coming, she ascended to the missionary’s sanctum sanctorum.

Now, Rev. Mr. Payson, in his varied pursuits of preacher, pastor, house-carpenter, stone-mason, farmer, and doctor,–for, having skill in medicine, the sick depended somewhat on his medical care,–he was quite apt to leave his uninviting study in disorder, especially when suddenly called from home. Moreover, like the other cabins in a new country, the house was overrun with field mice, making it, as Mr. 147 Payson sometimes said, “dangerous to sleep with one’s mouth open, lest a mouse might mistake it for his hole, and pop in.” Whether, however, such a suffocating casualty would occur or not, the wee animals chased each other along the logs, ransacked the closet, scampered across the beds, nibbling at everything that tempted their sharp little teeth; even the clergyman’s books and papers were mutilated by them most irreverently.

The sight of the sheets and bits of writing paper, the news journals, and old reviews,–for the missionary, unable to take the current publications, read and re-read the old ones with a mournful satisfaction,–and the other signs of confusion which prevailed, and which so annoyed his wife, were as refreshing to Mrs. Smith’s eyes as the first glimpse of land to Columbus.

“Zactly as I expected,” she ejaculated, lifting her hands in horror. “I alluz hearn tell that these ere lit’ry women are a shiftless set. I should think it would worry a man’s life out of his body to be jined to sich a hussy. Why, there’s my Betsy Ann; she ken go a visitin’ more ’n half the time, and her husband never said boo agin her house-work; an’ I’ve known lots o’ women what could embroider, an’ play the piana, an’ make heaps o’ calls, an’ attind balls an’ sich till enymost mornin’, an’ they’d no more 148 think o’ wastin’ their time in writin’ a book than cuttin’ their heads off! But duzzn’t them books look pooty on them shelves? I should think it would make the minister’s head split if he knows all that’s in them volums; an’ they do say he’s ter’ble larned. Well, I mustn’t stay here no longer, though it’s jist as I expected.” And, returning to the room below, she lifted her hands again in astonishment as she saw by the clock that it was five. “I guess John’ll have to git his own fodder to-night, or go without. He’s used to it, though. I brings my man up not to expect a woman to drudge, drudge, about house. But, mercy me!” she exclaimed, “where’s that child gone to? I warrant he’s in some mischief;” and, opening the door, she called,–

“Bub, Bub! come inter the huss!”

But Bub did not answer. So she went around the cabin, but could see nothing of him, and, thinking that he would not come because it was she that called him, she added,–

“Come right in now; Tom wants yer.”

There was only a slight clearing around the cabin, and then came a thick growth of bushes, and beyond, the woods on either hand, save the path in the direction of the town. It was but a few rods to the nearest house in the village, and she hurried there to make inquiries, for she was becoming anxious for the child. But the children, 149 playing near by, said that Bub had not passed that way, so, running back, she instituted a new search in the vicinity of the cabin, calling him as before, and receiving no answer; and, as there was a wide cart track leading into the woods from the cabin door, thinking it natural for the child to stray that way, she hastened in that direction.