headed. "He's coming!" "The Master! was a cry that echoed from one to another. They dropped their sports, and drew up in lines on either side as the object of their attention passed; the boys folding their arms and making short quick bows; the girls dove-tailing their fingers and squatting in low courtesies. Margaret, with Bull at her heels, came on at a respectful distance behind. "Moll Hart," exclaimed one of the boys. "A Pond Gal." "An Injin, an Injin." "Where did ye git so much hat?" "Did your daddy make them are clogs?" So she was saluted by one and another; but the dog, whose qualities were obvious in his face, if they had not been rendered familiar in any other way, saved her from all but verbal insolence.

The Master's was a ground room in an old house. It was large, with small windows; the walls were wainscotted, the ceiling boarded, and darkened by age into a reddish mahogany hue. The chairs were high-top, fan-back, heavy mahogany. A bureau-desk occupied one side, with its slanting leaf, pigeon-holes, and escutcheons bearing the head of King George. On the walls hung pictures in small black frames, comprising all the kings and queens of England, from William the Conqueror to the present time. Margaret's attention was drawn to his books, which consisted of editions of the Latin and Greek classics, and such school books as from time to time he had occasion to use; and miscellanies, made up of works on Free-Masonry, a craft of which he was a devoted member; books of secular and profane music, a science to which he was much attached; various histories and travels; the works of Bolingbroke, Swift and Sterne; the Spectator and Rambler; Milton, Spenser, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Darwin, Pope, and other poets; Wolstoncraft's Rights of Women, Paine's Age of Reason, Lord Monboddo's works; Tooke's Pantheon; Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; the Echo, by the Hartford Wits, the American Museum, and the Massachusetts Magazine; Trumbull's McFingal, The Devil on Two Sticks, Peregrine Pickle; Quincy's Dispensatory; Nurse Freelove's New Year's Gift, the Puzzling Cap, the "World turned upside down." He gave Margaret, as he had promised, "The New Universal Spelling Book," by Daniel Fenning, late School-master of the Bures in Suffolk, in England.

The Store, to which Margaret next directed her steps, was a long old two-story building, bearing some vestiges of having once been painted red. The large window-shutters and door

constituted advertising boards for the merchant himself, and the public generally. Intermixed with articles of trade, were notices of calves found, hogs astray, sales on execution; beeswax, flax, skins, bristles and old pewter, you were informed would be taken in exchange for goods, and that "cash and the highest price would be given for the Hon. Robert Morris's notes. One 66 read as follows: paper 'You Josiah Penrose, of &c., are hereby permitted to sell 400 gallons W. I. Rum, do. Brandy, 140 Gin, and 260 pounds of brown Sugar, on all of which the excise has been duly paid, pursuant to an Act of the Legislature.

(Signed)

WILLIAM KINGSLAND,

Collector of excise for the
County of Stafford."

There was also on the door a staring programme of a lottery scheme. Lotteries, at this period common in all New England, had become a favorite resort for raising money to support government, carry on wars, build churches, construct roads, endow colleges, &c. There was one other sign, that of the Post-office. Entering the store you beheld a motley array of dry and fancy goods, crockery, hardware, and groceries, drugs and medicines. On the right were rolls of kerseymeres, calliman coes, thicksets, durants, fustians, shaloons, antiloons, ratteens, duffils and serges of all colors; Manchester checks, purple and blue calicoes; silks, ribbons, oznaburgs, ticklenbergs, buckram. On the left were cuttoes, Barlow knives, iron candlesticks, jewsharps, blackball, bladders of snuff; in the left corner was the apothecary's apartment, and on boxes and bottles were written in fading gilt letters, "Arg. Viv." "Rad. Sup. Virg." "Ens Veneris," "Oculi Cancrorum," "Aqua æris fixi," "Lapis Infernalis," "Ext. Saturn." "Pulvis Regal." "Sal Martis," &c. On naked beams above were suspended weavers' skans, wheelheads, &c., and on a high shelf running quite around the walls was cotton warp of all numbers. The back portion of the building was devoted to a traffic more fashionable and universal in New England than it ever will be again; and a row of pipes, hogsheads and barrels, indicated an article the nature of which could not be mistaken. Above these hung proof-glasses, tap-borers, a measuring rod, a decanting pump; and interspersed on the walls, were bunches of chalk-scores in perpendicular and transverse lines. Near by was a small counter covered with tumblers and toddy sticks; and when Margaret entered, one or two ragged will-gill looking men

stood there mixing and bolting down liquors. Had she looked into the counting-room, she would have seen a large fire-place in one corner, a high desk, round-back arm-chairs and several hampers of wine.

Margaret sat waiting for two young ladies, who appeared to have some business with the clerk. These were Bethia Weeks, the daughter of one of the village squires, and Martha Madeline Gisborne, the daughter of the joiner. The clerk's name was Abel Wilcox.

"For my part," said Miss Bethia, "I don't believe a word of it."

"He has kept steady company with her every time he has been in town," responded Miss Martha Madeline.

"As if every upstart of a lawyer was to Captain Grand it over all the girls here," added the clerk.

"I don't think the Judge's folk are better than some other people's folk," said Martha Madeline.

66

Susan is a nice girl," rejoined Bethia.

"I should not be surprised if they were cried next Sabbath," said Martha Madeline.

"I guess there will be more than one to cry then," added Bethia.

"Now don't; you are really too bad," rejoined Abel.

This conversation continuing some time, was unintelligible to Margaret, as we presume it is to our readers, and it were idle to report it.

"How much shall I measure you of this tiffany, Matty?" at length asked Abel.

"Oh dear me suz! I don't know," she replied. "Perhaps I shall not take any now. You give three shillings for cotton cloth, and this is nine and six a yard, I declare for't I shall have to put to; and I must get some warp at any rate. We have been waiting for some we sent up to Brown Moll's to be colored, and I don't think it will ever be done."

"There's young Moll now," said Abel, pointing to Margaret, who was seated behind the ladies.

"Has your Marm got that done?" asked Martha Madeline. "No, she has not," replied Margaret.

"A book, a book!" exclaimed Martha Madeline, "The Ingin has got a book. She will be as wise as the Parson." "Can you say your letters?" asked Bethia.

"Yes," replied Margaret.

"Who is teaching you?" "The Master."

"Pshaw!" ejaculated Martha Madeline, "I never was at school in my life. Now all the gals is going; such as can't tell treadles from treacle have got books. And here the Master goes up to that low, vile, dirty place, the Pond, to larn the brats."

Margaret came forward and stated her errand to the clerk. "Yes, I dare say, she wants rum," added Martha Madeline. " Daddy says there is no sense in it; they will all come to ruin; he says Pluck and his boys drink five or six times a day, and that nobody should think of drinking more than three times. Parson Welles says it's a sin for any family to have more than a gallon a week. There's Hopestill Cutts, he has been kept out of the church this ten months, because he won't come down to half a pint a day."

"Never mind," interposed the clerk, "I guess they will find their allowance cut short this time, ha! ha! Here ain't eggs enough, gal."

"Marm says you must give a shilling a dozen,” replied Margaret.

66

Perhaps your Marm will say that again before we do," rejoined the clerk. "Eggs don't go for but nine-pence in Livingston or anywhere else."

Margaret was in a dilemma;—the rum must be had, the other articles were equally necessary.

"Pa will pay you," she bethought herself.

"No he won't," answered the clerk.

"Chilion will bring you down skins, axe-helves, and whipstocks."

"I tell you, we can't and won't trust you. Your drunken dad has run up a long chalk already. Look there, I guess you know enough to count twelve, twelve gallons he owes now. You are all a haggling, gulching, good-for-nothing

crew.".

"I will bring you some chesnuts and thistle down in the fall," replied Margaret.

"Can't trust any of you. What will you take for your book?"

"I can't sell it; the Master gave it to me."

"If he would teach you to pay your debts he would do well."

A little girl came in about the age of Margaret, and stood looking attentively at her a moment, as one stranger child is wont to do with another, then lifting Margaret's hat as it were inspecting her face, said; "she is not an Injin; they said she

was; her face is white as mine." This little girl was Isabel Weeks, sister of Bethia.

66

Ha, Belle!" said the latter, "what are you here for?"

"I came to see the Injin. Have you got a book too?" she said, addressing herself to Margaret. "Can you say your letters?"

"Yes," replied Margaret, "but they want it for rum."

"That's wicked; I know it is. Ma wouldn't let me give my spelling-book for rum. I have threepence in my pocket you may have them."

"Save a thief from hanging and he will cut your throat," Isaid Martha Madeline.

"Can't bore an auger hole with a gimlet," interjected Abel; "two threepences won't be enough, Miss Belle."

"Judah has got tenpence, I'll go and get them," answered Isabel.

The dog at this moment seeing the trouble of his mistress began to growl, and the young ladies to scream.

"Out with your dog, young wench, and go home," cried the clerk.

may✓

"Lie down, Bull!" said Margaret. "Here, sir, you may have the book."

The bargain being completed, Margaret, taking her articles, left the store; and Isabel followed her.

66 we

"The lower classes are very troublesome," said Abel, have to take odds and ends, and everything from them. If we didn't favor them a little, I believe they would take the store by storm. Deacon Penrose says it is a mercy to ourselves and the town that we have liquors to sell. The other day when I had been drawing a keg for Parson Welles, Ike Tapley, because I wouldn't let him have the lick of the tap, was as mad as a March hare. Precious little profit do we get out of these folks."

Isabel walked on with Margaret across the Green in silence. She said nothing, but with her pinafore wiped the tears from Margaret's eyes. She was too young, perhaps, to tell all she felt, and could only alleviate the grief she beheld by endeavoring to efface its effects.

Margaret, happy, unhappy, fagged up the hill; she had lost her book, she had got the rum; herself was miserable, she knew her family would be pleased, yet she was wholly sad when she thought of the Master and then of her book. left the highway and crossed the Pasture. The sun had gone down when she reached the woods, she feared not; her

She