“Oh the twins got to runnin’ to the tarvern. They’d get out of the winder nights, after pretendin’ to go to bed early; said they couldn’t stay to home. I s’pose the Deacon was so good, that it made ’em powerful uncomfortable, they bein’ so different. It was jest about that time I had such a tussle to keep Tom to home. They was both of ’em jest about Tom’s age, they was next older than Molly. Well, as might be expected, they got into bad company to the tarvern, got to drinkin’ and carousin’, and the Deacon turned ’em out doors. Bein’ so good he naturally couldn’t stand such doin’s at all, and they went from bad to worse. I don’t know where they be now, though I heerd they had gone to sea. They seemed to be the most sot ag’inst religion of any of ’em, the two twins was. I heerd they vowed they’d be pirates before they died, but I don’t know whether they ever got up to that aim of theirn or not.”
“Well, there was another boy, between Zebulin Jr. and Zack. Where is he?”
“Oh, that was Jonathan. A real good-hearted feller Jont was, and full of fun when his father wasn’t round; of course the old Deacon wouldn’t stand no fun. Jont was the smartest one of the lot, and his mother’s idol. Well, the old Deacon was bent on Jonts preachin’, was determined to make an Elder of him, and Jont hadn’t never experienced religion, nor nothin.’ He told his father, I’ve heern, that he never had no call to preach, and that he was sot on bein’ a carpenter. Always putterin’ round a carpenter’s shop, and makin’ little housen, and wheels and things, Jont was; his nateral nater all seemed to run that way, but the old Deacon wouldn’t give in, said he called him, himself. He atted Jont about it all the time, preachin’ at him, and exhortin’ him. He was bound at convertin’ Jont himself. I s’pose he exhorted him powerful, and Jont not bein’ good enough to stand it, the upshot of the matter was, he jined a circus; turns summersets and so 4th.”
FOOLIN’ AWAY TIME.
“What did Uncle Zebulin say to that?”
“Oh, the old Deacon is so dignified you can’t never see no change in him, he haint one of the kind to squirm. He said in a conference meetin’ that week, that it was dretful consolin’ to think he had always done his duty by Jont, sot his sinful state before him day and night, and been a pattern before him from his youth. He was thankful and happy that his sin didn’t lay on his coat-skirts. But it jest killed the old lady; she didn’t live only a few weeks after Jont left.”
“Then Aunt Patience is dead?” says Josiah sithin’.
“Yes, she had been in a kind of a melancholly way for sometime, had kind o’ crazy spells, and when Jont left home that used her completely up.”
“It seems to me there was another boy, but I can’t call him by name this minute.”