"Wa'al, ma, the world hain't all squeezed into this yere little town of
Crankett. I've been elsewheres, some, an' I've seed some funny things,
and likewise some that wuzn't so funny ez they might be."

"P'r'aps ye hev, but ye needn't allus be a-settin' other folks down.
Mebbe Crankett ain't the whole world, but it's seed that awful case of
Molly Capins, and the shipwreck of thirty-four, when the awful
nor'easter wuz, an'--"

"Wa'al, wa'al, ma--don't let's fight 'bout it," said Ephr'm, with a
sigh, as he tenderly scraped down a new ax-helve with a piece of glass,
while his wife made the churn-dasher hurry up and down as if the
innocent cream was Ephr'm's back, and she was avenging thereon Ephr'm's
insults to Crankett and its people.

Deacon Ephraim Crankett was a descendant of the founder of the village,
and although now a sixty-year old farmer, he had in his lifetime seen
considerable of the world. He had been to the fishing-banks a dozen
times, been whaling twice, had carried a cargo of wheat up the
Mediterranean, and had been second officer of a ship which had picked
up a miscellaneous cargo in the heathen ports of Eastern Asia.

[Illustration: JIM HOCKSON'S REVENGE.--"HE HELD IT UNDER THE LIGHT, AND
EXAMINED IT CLOSELY."]

He had picked up a great many ideas, too, wherever he had been, and his
wife was immensely proud of him and them, whenever she could compare
them with the men and ideas which existed at Crankett; but when Ephr'm
displayed his memories and knowledge to her alone--oh, that was a very