"Come, Sam, you want to get out of there, and sit in the seats with the righteous. It's never too late for the sinner to repent."
"Oh, go away, Bill. Let me alone. It's bad enough to sit here in these cussed stocks, till every bone in my body aches, and have the children stare at me, without you coming over to poke fun at me. I'm sick of it."
"That's right! A change of heart will do you good. See you in meeting next Sabbath."
The next day, Robert Harrington, the constable, drove up to the stocks with his cart.
"See here, Bob. Let me out. I give in. I'll go to meeting twice a day for the fifty-two Sabbaths in the year, and on lecture days and any other days that they want me to go."
VAGRANTS AND SINNERS
"All right; I'll let you out, but they will expect an acknowledgment from you of your wrong-doing, in meeting next Sabbath."
"Just let me out of these stocks, and I'll do anything they ask."
Mr. Harrington released him, and then turned to the vagrant and said, "Come, old boy, you've got to move on. We can't have you on our hands."
He took him in his cart, carried him miles away, and dumped him in the road, just as you would an old cat that you wanted to get rid of; and warned him never to come back.