Even were Rip to change, his neighbors would not, for in the twenty years, while he calmly slumbered, the weekly “sewing circles” would infallibly be held; and around and about the sewing circles everything in this wayside, or rather out-of-the-way-side, hamlet revolved. When Mrs. Dobson put on her new striped stuff dress for the first time, and came down to the “circle,” every eye was upon her, and she had no rest until she told where she obtained it, how much it cost per yard, and how many yards it took for the dress. Particularly is this worthy of mention to enable those remote from this village of snow-trodden paths to realize fully its unchangeableness, and its hunger for something out of the ordinary to give food for talk and thought. A boy of fourteen had driven me from the railway station, twelve miles away, as he carried the meagre leather bag, denominated by grace Her Majesty’s Mail, in a square-boxed sleigh drawn by one horse--such a sleigh as in New England they term a “pung.” At the village hostelry I am domiciled within four wooden-sided, clap-boarded, white-painted walls, where I am “ated and slaped,” and all for $1.00 per day. After the ample evening tea, and over a quiet pipe in the corner of the bar, while conning a paper two days old, the voluble and voluminous landlady asks if I will not “go and hear the professor to-night?” Not having been at the weekly sewing circle for that week, I am not posted, and in my innocence ask of the professor, “And what’s to be heard from him?” “He’s a psychologist, sir, and they all say he can make people do just what he chooses to make them do. He’s going to speak to-night in the Temperance [Illustration: AUTHOR’S FATHER LOADING HIS SCHOONERS WITH LUMBER BY RAFTING, ON LAKE ONTARIO.] Hall, just across the way; all the village will be there, and I think you would be amused, sir, if you chose to go.” “Thanks, madam, for the information, and I’ll certainly go.” The Temperance Hall is jammed--well, that’s the ordinary way of putting it; but in this case it is pressed in full much the same as they press cotton in the rude bales on the home plantations down south, before they are sent away to the big cotton presses in the cities. “A stranger? Well, we must let him in, for perhaps he’s a friend of the prof.” “Can’t quite claim the honor, but would like to get in.” Stepping over the tops of the long seats, I get in, and make my way up near the professor.