And the idea might have been quenched entirely, but for the burning zeal of two unmarried women,--“Nanny Joe” and “Nanny Moses,” the daughters respectively of Mr. Joseph Payne and Mr. Moses Payne. They believed in a chapel. They preached this belief; and many women were converted. The first convert was Miss Janet (Mr. William Melendy’s wife, called “Miss Janet,” to distinguish her from four other Mrs. Melendys). A meeting was called at her house. Before its close, the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. The men’s objections first were shown up to be scarecrows, then pelted down with ridicule. A sewing-circle was formed, which met once a week to sew “slop-work,” and knit toes of stockings,--heels, too, I think. Oh, yes! “heeled and toed:” that’s the very expression. In other respects, the stockings were woven. The circle meant business. Some members met early in the morning, and worked all day. Ellinor Payne, who is employed in a tailor’s shop at Piper’s Mills, gave fifteen dollars of her own earnings. The enthusiasm increased. Did any waver in the faith, influenced by doubting men, Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses were ready to encourage and sustain. Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses were eloquent to persuade, ingenious to devise, skilful to contrive, and untiring in their labors. They fired the ambition of every woman in the place. They took that chapel (the chapel that was to be), and resolved it into its constituent parts,--its doors, windows, timbers, boards, nails even, and induced different individuals to be responsible for, say, a bundle of shingles, a window, a door, a stick of timber. Young and old caught the fever. Little girls vied with each other in earning panes of glass. Blooming maidens took upon their shoulders clapboards, laths, and kegs of nails. Matrons bore bravely their respective burdens of beams, rafters, and flooring; and one cheerful old grandame, a steadfast knitter, smiled under the weight of the desk. The little girls earned their money by running of errands, and picking huckleberries, and making patchwork cradle-quilts to sell. The older ones also picked huckleberries. When the season was at its height, the circle met in the pastures, and picked its pecks and its bushels. The berries were sent to Piper’s Mills to be sold. If there were no other way of sending them, Nanny Joe and Nanny Moses would take Mr. David’s old red horse and go themselves. Mr. David Melendy committed himself at the very beginning, by a promise, which, though made in jest, was claimed in terrible earnest, as the old man found to his cost.