When she had finished, Grandpa shook his head with painful earnestness, reverting to the former subject of discussion.

   "It's a long jaunt!" said he; "a long jaunt!"

   "Thar's a long hill to climb before we reach Zion's mount," said Grandma Keeler, impressively.

   "Wall, there's a darned sight harder one on the road to West Wallen!" burst out the old sea-captain desperately; "say nothin' about the devilish stones!"

   "Thar' now," said Grandma, with calm though awful reproof; "I think we've gone fur enough for one day; we've broke the Sabbath, and took the name of the Lord in vain, and that ought to be enough for perfessors."

   Grandpa replied at length in a greatly subdued tone: "Wall, if you and the teacher want to go over to Sunday-school to-day, I suppose we can go if we get ready," a long submissive sigh—"I suppose we can."

   "They have preachin' service in the mornin', I suppose," said Grandma. "But we don't generally git along to that. It makes such an early start. We generally try to get around, when we go, in time for Sunday-school. They have singin' and all. It's just about as interestin', I think, as preachin'. The old man r'aly likes it," she observed aside to me; "when he once gets started, but he kind o' dreads the gittin' started."

   When I beheld the ordeal through which Grandpa Keeler was called to pass, at the hands of his faithful consort, before he was considered in a fit condition of mind and body to embark for the sanctuary, I marveled not at the old man's reluctance, nor that he had indeed seen clouds and tempest fringing the horizon.

   Immediately after breakfast, he set out for the barn, ostensibly to "see to the chores;" really, I believe, to obtain a few moments' respite, before worse evil should come upon him.

   Pretty soon Grandma was at the back door calling in firm though persuasive tones:

   "Husband! husband! come in, now, and get ready."

   No answer. Then it was in another key, weighty, yet expressive of no weak irritation, that Grandma called "Come, pa! pa-a! pa-a-a!" Still no answer.

   Then that voice of Grandma's sung out like a trumpet, terrible with meaning—"Bijonah Keeler!"

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