now," I left that woodshed a happy boy.

I made up my mind even stronger to be a monument of behavior. Whether it was mother's talk, or that I did really keep out of scrapes, at least I got through the week without a thrashing.

Then come Sunday again. My Sunday-school teacher was a maiden lady by the name of Mehitabel Demilt—aunt to Thomas F., my present partner. Miss Hitty wasn't much to look at. Growing her nose had absorbed most of her vitality, and her years was such she could have looked on a good part of mankind right motherly, if she'd been inclined that way. Howsomever, she wore the styles of sweet sixteen, and whenever a man come around she frisked like a clothes-horse.

But a kinder woman never lived. When with the boys she dropped her tomfoolery, too. Trouble was, them young clothes stood for all she dreamt of—give them dreams the go-by, and the race was lost for poor Miss Hitty. Feathers flyin' and ribbons streaming, she made herself believe she was still in the running; without 'em, she knew only too well what it was to be a lonely, long-nosed, forsaken, homely old maid. I don't blame her a particle. Her finery stood to her like whisky to a busted man. Take a little wine for your stomachache, and a few clothes for your heartache.

A trifle gay for father's crowd was Miss Hitty, but they didn't dast to say a word. She belonged to one of our best families, and her brother-in-law, who could be as ungodly a man under provocation as you ever see, held a mortgage on the church. He'd 'a' dumped the outfit into the snows of winter, and never a second thought, if they didn't treat Miss Hitty right. So they overlooked things and gave her the Bible class to run. Mighty nice to us boys she was; she certainly was. Curious mix of part child and part horse-sense woman. The woman savvied her place all right, but the child part couldn't stand for the pain of it.

If there was anything that made Miss Hitty warlike it was cruelty. Seems the Mrs. Jael sermon riled her plumb through. I suppose, perhaps, she didn't understand how any woman could be so recklessly extravagant as to drive a nail through a sound man's head, and spoil him. Miss Hitty might have spiked his coat-tails to the floor, but his head? Never. Joshing aside, she beat the tom-tom over that sermon, giving us boys a medicine talk that sticks still: how we were all fools not to make the earth as pleasant as we could, so long 's we got to live here. It seemed reasonable. I thought about it all that night, trying to find a subject to make better and happier, as Miss Hitty said.

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