getting into his mowing, or Squire Moses's geese were to be shut up in the town pound, or something equally important kept him busy from year's end to year's end.

Now, as a mat

ter of private amusement, this might have answered very well; but then Uncle Jaw was not satisfied to fight his own battles, but must needs go from house to house, narrating the whole length and breadth of the case, with all the says he's and says I's, and the I tell'd him's and he tell'd me's, which do either accompany or flow therefrom. Moreover, he had such a marvellous facility of finding out matters to quarrel about, and of letting every one else know where they, too, could muster a quarrel, that he generally succeeded in keeping the whole neighbourhood by the ears.

And as good Deacon Enos assumed the office of peacemaker for the village, Uncle Jaw's efficiency rendered it no sinecure. The deacon always followed the steps of Uncle Jaw, smoothing, hushing up, and putting matters aright with an assiduity that was truly wonderful.

Uncle Jaw himself had a great respect fore the good man, and, in common with all the neighbourhood, sought unto him for counsel, though, like other seekers of advice, he appro

priated only so much as seemed good in his

own eyes.

Still he took a kind of pleasure in dropping in of an evening to Deacon Enos's fire, to re count the various matters which he had taken or was to take in hand; at one time to narrate "how he had been over the mill-dam, telling old Granny Clark that she could get the law of Seth Scran about that pasture lot," or else "how he had told Ziah Bacon's widow that she had a right to shut up Bill Scranton's pig every time she caught him in front of her house."

But the grand "matter of matters," and the one that took up the most of Uncle Jaw's spare time, lay in a dispute between him and Squire Jones, the father of Susan and Silence; for it so happened that his lands and those of Uncle Jaw were contiguous. Now the matter of dispute was on this wise: on Squire Jones's land there was a mill, which mill Uncle Jaw averred was "always a flooding his medder land." As Uncle Jaw's "medder land" was by nature half bog and bulrushes, and therefore liable to be found in a wet condition, there was always a happy obscurity where the water came from, and whether there was at any time more there than belonged to his share. So, when all other subject matters of dispute failed, Uncle Jaw

recreated himself with getting up a lawsuit about his "medder land," and one of these cases was in pendency when, by the death of the squire, the estate was left to Susan and Silence, his daughters. When, therefore, the report reached him that Deacon Enos had been cheated out of his dues, Uncle Jaw prepared forthwith to go and compare notes. Therefore, one evening, as Deacon Enos was sitting quietly by the fire, musing and reading with his big Bible open before him, he heard the premonitory symptoms of a visitation from Uncle Jaw on his door scraper, and soon the man made his appearance. After seating himself directly in front of the fire, with his elbows on his knees, and his hands spread out over the coals, he looked up in Deacon Enos's mild face with his little inquis. itive gray eyes, and remarked, by way of opening the subject, "Well, Deacon, old Squire Jones is gone at last. I wonder how much good all his land will do him now?"

"Yes," replied Deacon Enos, "it just shows how all these things are not worth striving after. We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."

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Why, yes," replied Uncle Jaw, "that's all very right, Deacon, but it was strange how that old Squire Jones did hang on to things. Now that mill of his, that was always soaking off water into

these medders of mine, I took and tell'd Squire Jones just how it was, pretty nigh twenty times, and yet he would keep it just so; and now he's dead and gone, there is that old gal Silence is full as bad, and makes more noise; and she and Suke have got the land; but, you see, I mean to work it yet!"

Here Uncle Jaw paused to see whether he had produced any sympathetic excitement in Deacon Enos; but the old man sat without the least emotion, quietly contemplating the top of the long kitchen shovel. Uncle Jaw fidgeted in his chair, and changed his mode of attack for one more direct. 'I heard 'em tell, Deacon Enos, that the Squire served you something of an unhandy sort of trick about that 'ere lot of land."

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Still Deacon Enos made no reply; but Uncle Jaw's perseverance was not so to be put off, and he recommenced. Squire Abel, you see, he tell'd me how the matter was, and he said he did not see as it could be mended; but I took and tell'd him, 'Squire Abel,' says I, 'I'd bet pretty nigh 'most any. thing, if Deacon Enos would tell the matter to me, that I could find a hole for him to creep out at; for,' says I, I've seen daylight through more twistical cases than that afore now.'"

Still Deacon Enos remained mute; and Uncle Jaw, after waiting a while, recommenced with,

"But, railly, Deacon, I should like to hear the particulars!"

"I have made up my mind not to say anything more about that business," said Deacon Enos, in a tone which, though mild, was so exceedingly defi nite, that Uncle Jaw felt that the case was hopeless in that quarter; he therefore betook himself to the statement of his own grievances.

"Why, you see, Deacon," he began, at the same time taking the tongs, and picking up all the little brands, and disposing them in the middle of the fire, "you see, two days arter the funeral (for I didn't railly like to go any sooner), I stepped up to hash over the matter with old Silence; for as to Sukey, she ha'n't no more to do with such things than our white kitten. Now, you see, Squire Jones, just afore he died, he took away an old rail fence of his'n that lay between his land and mine, and began to build a new stone wall, and when I come

to measure, I found he had took and put a'most the whole width of the stone wall on to my land, when there ought not to have been more than half of it come there. Now, you see, I could not say a word to Squire Jones, because, jest before I found it out, he took and died; and so I thought I'd speak to old Silence, and see if she meant to do anything about it, 'cause I knew pretty well she wouldn't; and I tell you, if she didn't put it on me! we had a reg.