The New Ministers Great Opportunity | Page 3

was long ago, at the time I was married and first came here. I had a young men's Bible-class in Sunday-school, and Uncle Capen came into it. He always wore a cap, and sat at meetings with the boys. So, one Sunday, we had in the lesson that verse,--you know,--that if all these things should be written, even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written; and there Uncle Capen stopped me, and said he, 'I suppose that means the world as known to the ancients?'"
Holt put on his hat, and with a smile turned and went on his way toward the parsonage; but he remembered that he had promised to call at what the local paper termed "the late residence of the deceased," where, on the one hundredth birthday of the centenarian, according to the poet's corner,--
"Friends, neighbors, and visitors he did receive From early in the morning till dewy eve."
So he turned his steps in that direction. He opened the clicking latch of the gate and rattled the knocker on the front door of the little cottage; and a tall, motherly woman of the neighborhood appeared and ushered him in.
Uncle Capen's unmarried daughter, a woman of sixty, her two brothers and their wives, and half-a-dozen neighbors were sitting in the tidy kitchen, where a crackling wood-fire in the stove was suggesting a hospitable cup of tea.
The ministers appearance, breaking the formal gloom, was welcomed.
"Well," said Miss Maria, "I suppose the sermon is all writ by this time. I think likely you 've come down to read it to us."
"No," said Holt, "I have left the actual writing of it till I get all my facts. I thought perhaps you might have thought of something else."
"No; I told you everything there was about father yesterday," she said. "I 'm sure you can't lack of things to put in; why, father lived a hundred years--and longer, too, for he was a hundred years and six days, you remember."
"You know," said Holt, "there are a great many things that are very interesting to a man's immediate friends that don't interest the public." And he looked to Mr. Small for confirmation.
"Yes, that 's so," said Mr. Small, nodding wisely.
"But, you see, father was a centenarian," said Maria, "and so that makes everything about him interesting. It's a lesson to the young, you know."
"Oh, yes, that's so," said Mr. Small, "if a man lives to be a centurion."
"Well, you all knew our good friend," said Mr. Holt. "If any of you will suggest anything, I shall be very glad to put it in."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"There's one interesting thing," said one of the sons, a little old man much like his father; "that is, that none of his children have ever gone meandering off; we've all remained"--he might almost have said remained seated--"all our lives, right about him."
"I will allude to that," said Mr. Holt. "I hope you have something else, for I am afraid of running short of material: you see I am a stranger here."
"Why, I hope there won't be any trouble about it," said Maria, in sudden consternation. "I was a little afraid to give it out to so young a man as you, and I thought some of giving the preference to Father Cobb, but I did n't quite like to have it go out of the village, nor to deprive you of the opportunity; and they all assured me that you was smart. But if you 're feeling nervous, perhaps we 'd better have him still; he 's always ready."
"Just as you like," said Holt, modestly; "if he would be willing to preach the sermon, we might leave it that way, and I will add a few remarks." But Maria's zeal for Father Cobb was a flash in the pan. He was a sickly farmer, a licensed preacher, who, when he was called upon occasionally to meet a sudden exigency, usually preached on the beheading of John the Baptist.
"I guess you 've got things enough to write," said Maria, consolingly; "you know how awfully a thing doos drag out when you come to write it down on paper. Remember to tell how we 've all stayed right here."
When Holt went out, he saw Mr. Small beckoning him to come to where his green wagon stood under a tree.
"I must tell you," he said, with an awkwardly repressed smile, "about a trade of Uncle Capen's. He had a little lot up our way that they wanted for a schoolhouse, and he agreed to sell it for what it cost him, and the selectmen, knowing what it cost him,--fifty dollars,--agreed with him that way. But come to sign the deed, he called for a hundred dollars. 'How 's that,' says they; 'you bought it of