The New Ministers Great Opportunity | Page 2

that's just what they do want."
"Well, well," said Mr. Hamblin, laboriously rising and putting his
spectacles into their silver case,--for it was supper-time,--"joking one
side, if Uncle Capen never did set the pond afire, we 'd all rather take
his chances to-day, I guess, than those of some smarter men."
At which Mr. Snell turned red; for he was a very smart man and had
just failed,--to everybody's surprise, since there was no reason in the
world why he should fail,--and had created more merriment for the
public than joy among his creditors, by paying a cent and a half on the
dollar.
"Come in; sit down," said Dr. Hunter, as the young minister appeared at
his office door; and he tipped back in his chair, and put his feet upon a
table. "What's the news?"
"Doctor," said Mr. Holt, laughing, as he laid down his hat and took an
arm-chair; "you told me to come to you for any information. Now I
want materials for a sermon on old Mr. Capen."
The Doctor looked at him with a half-amused expression, and then
sending out a curl of blue smoke, he watched it as it rose melting into

the general air.
"You don't smoke, I believe?" he said to the minister.
Holt smiled and shook his head.
The Doctor put his cigar back into his mouth, clasped one knee in his
hands, and fixed his eyes in meditation on a one-eared Hippocrates
looking down with a dirty face from the top of a bookcase. Perhaps the
Doctor was thinking of the two or three hundred complimentary visits
he had been permitted to make upon Uncle Capen within ten years.
Presently a smile broke over his face.
"I must tell you, before I forget it," he said, "how Uncle Capen nursed
one of my patients. Years and years ago, I had John Ellis, our
postmaster now, down with a fever. One night Uncle Capen
watched--you know he was spry and active till he was ninety. Every
hour he was to give Ellis a little ice-water; and when the first time came,
he took a table-spoonful--there was only a dim light in the room--and
poured the ice-water down Ellis's neck. Well, Ellis jumped, as much as
so sick a man could, and then lifted his finger to his lips: 'Here 's my
mouth,' said he. 'Why, why,' said Uncle Capen, 'is that your mouth? I
took that for a wrinkle in your forehead."
The minister laughed.
"I have heard a score of such stories to-day," he said; "there seem to be
enough of them; but I can't find anything adapted to a sermon, and yet
they seem to expect a detailed biography."
"Ah, that's just the trouble," said the Doctor. "But let us go into the
house; my wife remembers everything that ever happens, and she can
post you up on Uncle Capen, if anybody can."
So they crossed the door-yard into the house.
Mrs. Hunter was sewing; a neighbor, come to tea, was crocheting

wristers for her grandson.
They were both talking at once as the Doctor opened the sitting-room
door.
"Since neither of you appears to be listening," he said, as they started
up, "I shall not apologize for interrupting. Mr. Holt is collecting facts
about Uncle Capen for his funeral sermon, and I thought that my good
wife could help him out, if anybody could. So I will leave him."
And the Doctor, nodding, went into the hall for his coat and
driving-gloves, and, going out, disappeared about the corner of the
house.
"You will really oblige me very much, Mrs. Hunter," said the minister,
"--or Mrs. French,--if you can give me any particulars about old Mr.
Capen's life. His family seem to be rather sensitive, and they depend on
a long, old-fashioned funeral sermon; and here I am utterly bare of
facts."
"Why, yes," said Mrs. Hunter; "of course, now--"
"Why, yes; everybody knows all about him," said Mrs. French.
And then they laid their work down and relapsed into meditation.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Hunter, in a moment. "No, though--"
"Why, you know," said Mrs. French,--"no--I guess, on the whole--"
"You remember," said the Doctor's wife to Mrs. French, with a faint
smile, "the time he papered my east chamber--don't you--how he made
the pattern come?"
And then they both laughed gently for a moment.
"Well, I have always known him," said Mrs. French. "But really, being
asked so suddenly, it seems to drive everything out of my head."

"Yes," said Mrs. Hunter, "and it's odd that I can't think of exactly the
thing, just at this min-ute; but if I do, I will run over to the parsonage
this evening."
"Yes, so will I," said Mrs. French; "I know that I shall think of oceans
of things just as