Deacon Ephraim Crankett was a descendant of the founder of the village, and although now a sixty-year old farmer, he had in his lifetime seen considerable of the world. He had been to the fishing-banks a dozen times, been whaling twice, had carried a cargo of wheat up the Mediterranean, and had been second officer of a ship which had picked up a miscellaneous cargo in the heathen ports of Eastern Asia.
JIM HOCKSON’S REVENGE—“HE HELD IT UNDER THE LIGHT, AND EXAMINED IT CLOSELY.”
He had picked up a great many ideas, too, wherever he had been, and his wife was immensely proud of him and them, whenever she could compare them with the men and ideas which existed at Crankett; but when Ephr’m displayed his memories and knowledge to her alone—oh, that was a very different thing.
“Anyhow,” resumed Mrs. Crankett, raising the lid of the churn to see if there were any signs of butter, “it’s an everlastin’ shame. Jim Hockson’s a young feller in good standin’ in the Church, an’ Millie Botayne’s an unbeliever—they say her father’s a reg’lar infidel.”
“Easy, ma, easy,” gently remonstrated Ephr’m. “When he seed you lookin’ at his pet rose-bush on yer way to church las’ Sunday, didn’t he hurry an’ pull two or three an’ han’ ’em to ye?”
“Yes, an’ what did he hev’ in t’other han’?—a Boasting paper, an’ not a Sunday one, nuther! Millicent ain’t a Christian name, nohow ye can fix it—it amounts to jest ’bout’s much ez she does, an’ that’s nothing. She’s got a soft face, an’ purty hair—ef it’s all her own, which I powerfully doubt—an’ after that ther’s nothin’ to her. She’s never been to sewin’ meetin’, an’ she’s off a boatin’ with that New York chap every Saturday afternoon, instead of goin’ to the young people’s prayer-meetin’s.”
“She’s most supported Sam Ransom’s wife an’ young uns since Sam’s smack was lost,” suggested Ephr’m.
“That’s you, Deac’n Crankett,” replied his wife, “always stick up for sinners. P’r’aps you’d make better use of your time ef you’d examine yer own evidences.”
“Wa’al, wife,” said the deacon, “she’s engaged to that New York feller, ez you call Mr. Brown, so there’s no danger of Jim bein’ onequally yoked with an onbeliever. An’ I wish her well, from the bottom of my heart.”