know it I dror a line there, and I toe that line, and I make my neighbours toe that line, Deacon Talcott. Nine p’ints of the law is possession, and I’ll have possession o’ this ’ere house and land by fencin’ on’t in; and though every man ’t comes along should say these ’ere rails belong to them, I’ll fence it in with these ’ere very rails.’

“Jedwort said this, wagging his obstinate old head, and grinning with his face turned up pugnaciously at the Deacon; then went to work again as if he had settled the question, and didn’t wish to discuss it any further.

“As for Talcott, he was too full of wrath and boiling indignation to answer such a speech. He knew that Jedwort had managed to get the start of him with regard to the rails by mixing a few of his own with those he had stolen, so that nobody could tell ’em apart; and he saw at once that the meeting-house was in danger of going the same way, just for want of an owner to swear out a clear title to the property. He did just the wisest thing when he swallowed his vexation, and hurried off to alarm the leading men of the two societies, and to consult a lawyer. … The common was fenced in by sundown; and the next day Jedwort had over a house-mover from the North Village to look and see what could be done with the building. ‘Can ye snake it over and drop it back of my house?’ says he.

“‘It’ll be a hard job,’ says old Bob, ‘without you tear down the steeple fust.’

“But Jedwort said, ‘What’s a meetin’-house ’thout a steeple? I’ve got my heart kind o’ set on that steeple, and I’m bound to go the hull hog on this ’ere concern now I’ve began.’

“‘I vow,’ says Bob, examining the timbers, ‘I won’t warrant but what the old thing’ll all tumble down.’

“‘I’ll resk it.’

“‘Yes; but who’ll resk the lives of me and my men?’

“‘Oh, you’ll see if it’s re’ly goin’ to tumble and look out. I’ll engage ’t me and my boys ’ll do the most dangerous part of the work. Dumbed if I wouldn’t agree to ride in the steeple and ring the bell, if there was one.’

“It wasn’t many days before Bob came over again, bringing with him this time his screws and ropes and rollers, his men and timbers, horse and capstan; and at last the old house might have been seen on its travels.

“It was an exciting time all around. The societies found that Jedwort’s fence gave him the first claim to house and land, unless a regular siege of the law was gone through to beat him off—and then it might turn out that he would beat them. Some said fight him; some said let him be—the thing a’n’t worth going to law for; and so, as the leading men couldn’t agree as to what should be done, nothing was done. That was just what Jedwort had expected, and he laughed in his sleeve while Bob and his boys screwed up the old meeting-house, and got their beams under it, and set it on rollers, and slued it around, and slid it on the timbers laid for it across into Jedwort’s field, steeple foremost, like a locomotive on a track.

“It was a trying time for the women-folks at home. Maria had declared that if her father did persist in stealing the meeting-house, she would not stay a single day after it, but would follow Dave, who had already gone away.

“That touched me pretty close, for, to tell the truth, it was rather more Maria than her mother that kept me at work for the old man. ‘If you go,’ says I, ‘then there is no object for me to stay; I shall go too.’

“‘That’s what I supposed,’ says she; ‘for there’s no reason in the world why you should stay. But then Dan will go; and who’ll be left to take sides with mother? That’s what troubles me. Oh, if she could only