"Are your windows open towards Jerusalem?" said she, stooping and whispering in my ear: "Dave Rollin's out there hangin' onto the fence one side the bushes, and Lute Cradlebow the other, and they don't see each other no more than two bats." "Are your windows open towards Jerusalem" was a favorite with the Wallencampers. On this occasion they repeated it several times. Captain Sartell and Bachelor Lot, who had been engaging in a game of checkers in the little kitchen, left the board as the well-loved strains greeted their ears, and came in to join the group. Grandpa had been consigned to the kitchen stove, with a corn-popper. I do not think that he regretted being removed, somewhat from the more inspiring scenes which animated the Ark. I was amused to follow, with my ear, the old gentleman's progress in the successive stages of his corn-shelling and corn-popping operations with certain contingent misfortunes, as when he went into the pantry to look for a pan, and brought down a large quantity of tin-ware clanging about his ears, and rolling in all directions over the floor, while I immediately inferred from the tones of his voice that he was enjoying a little unembarrassed colloquy with the powers of darkness. Once, in his shuffling peregrinations, he tipped over the little bench which sustained the water-pail. A deep sigh of horror and despair escaped his lips, and was followed by a "What the Devil!" borne in upon the song-laden air with unmistakable force and distinctness. "For Heaven's sake, ma," said Madeline, looking up sharply; "what can pa be a' doin??" "Oh," calmly said Grandma Keeler, "I guess he's only settlin' down." And with Grandma, indeed, the turmoils of this sublunary sphere implied only a vast ultimate settling down. But if such deep rest came to Grandpa, it was only as a dream from which he was soon to be rudely awakened. The sound of his footsteps had ceased. I knew that he was seated in his chair by the fire, and I heard the long-handled popper shaken back and forth upon the stove, at first as if moved by the power of a steadfast purpose. But the sound grew fainter, the motions less regular. They were several times desperately renewed, and then ceased altogether, so quickly had Grandpa soared beyond the low vicissitudes of a corn-popping world. Soon a burning smell arose. Then the door of the kitchen opened. Grandpa was startled. I knew the catastrophe. The corn-popper with its contents had been precipitated to the floor. Then I heard a courteous male voice, with just a touch of suppressed merriment in it:-- "Never mind, Captain! small business for you, steering such a slim craft as that, eh? On a red-hot, stove, too!" "Humph! Topmast heavier than the hull," replied Grandpa, accepting with gratitude, in this extremity, the sympathy of the new-comer. The other gave a low laugh.