"Elder Wheat has more right here than I have. I want 'o say that I'm going to give up my church in Douglass and--" A murmur broke out, which he silenced with his raised hand. "I find I don't believe any longer what I've been believing and preaching. Hold on! let me go on. I don't quite know where I'll bring up, but I think my religion will simmer down finally to about this: A full half-bushel to the half-bushel and sixteen ounces to the pound." Here two or three cheered. "Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you." Applause from several, quickly suppressed as the speaker went on, Elder Wheat listening as if petrified, with his mouth open. "I'm going out of preaching, at least for the present. After things get into shape with me again, I may set up to teach people how to live, but just now I can't do it. I've got all I can do to instruct myself. Just one thing more. I owe two or three of you here. I've got the money for William Bacon, James Bartlett, and John Jennings. I turn the mare and cutter over to Jacob Bensen, for the note he holds. I hain't got much religion left, but I've got some morality. That's all I want to say now." When he sat down there was a profound hush; then Bacon arose. "That's _man's_ talk, that is! An' I jest want 'o say, Andrew Pill, that you kin jest forgit you owe me anything. An' if ye want any help come to me. Y're jest gittun' ready to preach, 'n' I'm ready to give ye my support." "That's the talk," said Councill. "I'm with ye on that." Pill shook his head. The painful silence which followed was broken by the effusive voice of Wheat:-- "Let us pray--and remember our lost brother." * * * * * The urgings of the people were of no avail. Mr. Pill settled up his affairs and moved to Cresco, where he went back into trade with a friend, and for three years attended silently to his customers, lived down their curiosity, and studied anew the problem of life. Then he moved away, and no one knew whither. One day last year Bacon met Jennings on the road. "Heerd anything o' Pill lately?" "No, have you?" "Waal, yes. Brown told me he ran acrost him down in Eelinoy, doun' well, too." "In dry goods?" "No, preachun'." "Preachun'?" "So Brown said. Kind of a free-f'r-all church, I reckon, from what Jedge told me. Built a new church; fills it twice a Sunday. I'd like to hear him, but he's got t' be too big a gun f'r us. Ben studyun', they say; went t' school." Jennings drove sadly and thoughtfully on. "Rather stumps Brother Jennings," laughed Bacon, in a good-humored growl. A DAY OF GRACE Sunday is the day for courtship on the prairie. It has also the piety of cleanliness. It allows the young man to get back to a self-respecting sweetness of person, and enables the girls to look as nature intended, dainty and sweet as posies.