the family horse, let alone to send to mill, and be ground into the meal which the Tappelmines fortunately preferred to fine flour. Father Baguss sold the necessities of life in small quantities to his neighbor, with the understanding that they were to be repaid by the labor of Tappelmine, who was to get out material for barrel-staves and wheelwright’s spokes on the old man’s woodland; but, by the time the wheat was planted, Tappelmine, who, under the eye of Baguss, did more work in a month than he had done in the whole of the year which preceded, and who during the month had been pretty effectually kept from his accustomed stimulant, fell sick. Then the cup of misery which Father Baguss had put to his own lips was full; as the old man, in his homely way, explained to his own pastor, it didn’t run over, and that was just the trouble; he had to drink it all. He sought for sympathy among his neighbors and acquaintances, but without much success; the Barton postmaster expressed the sentiment of the township, when he said that “no one but a thick-headed blunderer like Baguss would attempt to reform a dead-and-gone soaker like Tappelmine.” Besides, most of the inhabitants wanted to see how the case was going to turn out, and all of them instinctively understood that the best point of view is always at a respectable distance from the object to be looked at. The sorrowing philanthropist went to Crupp, Tomple, and Deacon Jones; but these three reformers, knowing that Baguss could afford the loss, quietly agreed with each other that it would be indeed consolatory to have a companion in experience; so they made excuses, and quoted figures in evidence, and Father Baguss went home with the settled conviction that he would have to look to Providence for his only assistance.