"Brethren, I ha'n't been home to chore-time in the last three days, and my wife is gittin' worked up abaout it. Here we've bin a-settin' and a-talkin' night arter night, and arternoon arter arternoon for more 'n a week, and 'pears to me it 's abaout time as tho' somethin' o' ruther ought to be done. There's nobody got nothin' agin the Doctor that I've _heerd_ of. He's a smart old gentleman, and he's a clever old gentleman, and he preaches what I call good, stiff doctrine; but we don't feel much like payin' for light work same as what we paid when the work was heavy,--'specially if we git a new minister on our hands. But then, brethren, I don't for one feel like turnin' an old hoss that's done good sarvice, when he gits stiff in the j'ints, into slim pastur', and I don't feel like stuffin' on 'em with bog hay in the winter. There's folks that dooz; but _I_ don't. Now, brethren, I motion that we continner to give as much as five hundred dollars to the old Doctor, and make the best dicker we can with the new minister; and I'll clap ten dollars on to my pew-rent; and the Deacon there, if he's anything of a man, 'll do as much agin. I know he's able to." Let no one smile. The halting prudence, the inevitable calculating process through which the small country New-Englander arrives at his charities, is but the growth of his associations. He gets hardly; and what he gets hardly he must bestow with self-questionings. If he lives "in the small," he cannot give "in the large." His pennies, by the necessities of his toil, are each as big as pounds; yet his charities, in nine cases out of ten, bear as large a proportion to his revenue as the charities of those who count gains by tens of thousands. Liberality is, after all, comparative, and is exceptionally great only when its sources are exceptionally small. That "_widow's mite_"--the only charity ever specially commended by the great Master of charities--will tinkle pleasantly on the ear of humanity ages hence, when the clinking millions of cities are forgotten. The new arrangement all comes to the ear of Reuben, who writes back in a very brusque way to the Doctor: "Why on earth, father, don't you cut all connection with the parish? You've surely done your part in that service. Don't let the 'minister's pay' be any hindrance to you, for I am getting on swimmingly in my business ventures,--thanks to Mr. Brindlock. I enclose a check for two hundred dollars, and can send you one of equal amount every quarter, without feeling it. Why shouldn't a man of your years have rest?"