"Only eight!" the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly luminous,—"and a pootty likely critter I call it for eight dollars."
"Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to soliloquize,)—"I hope to make 'em three hundred apiece. The price works up about Christmas: Deacon Simmons has sold his'n at five,—distillery-pork; that's sleezy, wastes in bilin'; folks know it: mine, bein' corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more,—and say, for Christmas, six; that'll give a gain of a cent,—on five hogs, at three hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That'll pay half my pew-rent, and leave somethin' over for Almiry, who's always wantin' fresh ribbons about New-Year's."
The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage: first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house; and next, because he counted it necessary on such occasions to give a Scriptural garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the authoritative look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife's suggestion, and primed with a text from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence,—and, being a really kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good parson shook his hand in thanks.
"It'll all be right," says the Deacon. "'Blessed are the mourners,' is the Scripteral language, 'for they shall inherit the earth.'"
"No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was like a wound in the flesh; "the last thing I want is to inherit the earth. 'They shall be comforted,'—that's the promise, Deacon, and I count on it."
It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught napping on so familiar a text; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in texts, the Deacon knew what his strong points were; so, before leaving, he invites a little offhand discussion of more familiar topics.
"Pootty tight spell o' weather we've been havin', Parson."
"Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman.
"Got all your winter's stock o' wood in yit?"
"No, I haven't," says the parson.