house-hunting, leaving grandfather to guard our home. He was
waked, in the middle of the night as he supposed, by a noise,
and started out to find where it came from. It continued; so he
courageously went downstairs and cautiously opened the kitchen
door. He reached out his skillet-trumpet before him through the
partly opened door and the milkman poured in a quart of milk.

This story, I am told, is an ancient chestnut. But I used to see the
deaf grandfather with his uplifted skillet on the steps of Beecher's
pulpit, and the young lady gave it as a real happening in her own
home. Did anyone hear of it before 1868 when she gave it to our
anecdote class? I believe this was the foundation or starter for
similar skillet-trumpet stories.

The girl was applauded, and deserved it. Then they asked me for a milk
story. I told them of a milkman who, in answer to a young mother's
complaint that the milk he brought for her baby was sour, replied:
"Well, is there anything outside the sourness that doesn't suit you?"
And Thoreau remarked that "circumstantial evidence is sometimes
conclusive, as when a trout is found in the morning milk."

This class was considered so practical and valuable that I was offered
pay for it, but it was a relief, after exhausting work.

We had many visitors interested in the work of the various classes.
One day Beecher strolled into the chapel and wished to hear some of
the girls read. All were ready. One took the morning paper; another
recited a poem; one read a selection from her scrapbook. Beecher
afterward inquired: "Whom have you got to teach elocution now? You
used to have a few prize pumpkins on show, but now every girl is doing