The connubial discussion that followed this breach of discipline began on the arrival of the saleratus, and lasted through supper; and Rose went to bed almost immediately afterward for very dullness and apathy. Her life stretched out before her in the most aimless and monotonous fashion. She saw nothing but heartache in the future; and that she richly deserved it made it none the easier to bear.

Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker cloak and stole quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her grandfather and grandmother were talking on the piazza, and good humor seemed to have been restored.

“I was over to the tavern to-night,” she heard him say, as she sat down at a little[Pg 155] distance. “I was over to the tavern to-night, an’ a feller from Gorham got to talkin’ an’ braggin’ ’bout what a stock o’ goods they kep’ in the store over there. ‘An’,’ says I, ‘I bate ye dollars to doughnuts that there hain’t a darn thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike’s store at Pleasant River that he can’t go down cellar, or up attic, or out in the barn chamber an’ git for ye.’ Well, sir, he took me up, an’ I borrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the stakes, an’ we went right over to Bill Pike’s with all the boys follerin’ on behind. An’ the Gorham man never let on what he was goin’ to ask for till the hull crowd of us got inside the store. Then says he, as p’lite as a basket o’ chips, ‘Mr. Pike, I’d like to buy a pulpit if you can oblige me with one.’

[Pg 155]

“Bill scratched his head an’ I held my breath. Then says he, ‘Pears to me I’d ought to hev a pulpit or two, if I can jest remember where I keep ’em. I don’t never cal’late to be out o’ pulpits, but I’m so[Pg 156] plagued for room I can’t keep ’em in here with the groc’ries. Jim (that’s his new store boy), you jest take a lantern an’ run out in the far corner o’ the shed, at the end o’ the hickory woodpile, an’ see how many pulpits we’ve got in stock!’ Well, Jim run out, an’ when he come back he says, ‘We’ve got two, Mr. Pike. Shall I bring one of ’em in?’

[Pg 156]

“At that the boys all bust out laughin’ an’ hollerin’ an’ tauntin’ the Gorham man, an’ he paid up with a good will, I tell ye!”

“I don’t approve of bettin’,” said Mrs. Wiley grimly, “but I’ll try to sanctify the money by usin’ it for a new wash-boiler.”

“The fact is,” explained old Kennebec, somewhat confused, “that the boys made me spend every cent of it then an’ 

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