It was now church time, and he was to sing bass to “The Lord descended from above” that day, in his view a stupendous performance. So he took his milk-pitcher along with him to the church, and up into the choir-loft. A red curtain hung on rings ran before the singers in the choir. The music books were placed on racks, and the choir was directly over the high pulpit, the deacon’s seat, and the clerk’s pew. A huge sounding-board hung over the pulpit, which was a kind of mahogany pen, with stairs on each side, and doors. The top of the pulpit reached almost to the choir. Singer Billy sang well that morning the sonorous music of William Billings of Stoughton, and touched the “foot-notes” with impressive clearness. Then he felt that his work was over, and began to be oblivious to the truth that was being proclaimed under the sounding-board. The old deacons, too, after all the excitements of mowing, milkings, and the preparations for making of the new cheese, were not in the most receptive mood, but felt the world gliding away from them in various ways. The clerk fell quite asleep, and wandered away in the far regions of air beyond the solid continents of all theologies. Even the tithing-man had dropped his rod. In this hour, when watchfulness had ceased, disaster came, and brought a scandal upon the descendants of the heroic Samson Mason, and upon all. A dog came trotting up the choir stairs. He, too, had found milk scarce that morning, and smelling Singer Billy’s pitcher near the red curtain, looked around and found that Billy and most of the singers were quite indifferent to current events. He ran his head down the long neck of the pitcher toward the pint of milk in the great hollow below. But while the descent of his head into the pitcher was easy, the withdrawing of it was otherwise. His head would not come out. He put up his inefficient paws and rubbed the outside of the pitcher; he moved to and fro, backward and forward. At last, not knowing where he was going, he passed quite under the red curtain, and finally succeeded in pushing the pitcher over the balcony. There was an alarming crash in the deacon’s pew. Was ever anything so extraordinary? It was not a centaur that had come down, half horse and half man, but a yet more marvellous beast, half dog and half pitcher. The pitcher was broken to fragments; the dog howled pitifully; the clerk and the deacons all awoke at once, and the tithing-man leaped to his feet. Singer Brown, too, suddenly came down from the blissful clover-gardens of dreamland, and looking over the curtain on the scene of mystery and disaster below, comprehended at a glance all that had happened. He prophetically calculated the future, and quickly slipped down the stairs, and out of the church. When questioned about the matter, he said, with unusual dignity,—