easier to bear.

Feeling feverish and sleepless, she slipped on her gray Shaker cloak and stole
quietly downstairs for a breath of air. Her grandfather and grandmother were
talking on the piazza, and good humor seemed to have been restored. "I was
over to the tavern tonight," she heard him say, as she sat down at a little
distance. "I was over to the tavern tonight, an' a feller from Gorham got to
talkin' an' braggin' 'bout what a stock o' goods they kep' in the store over
there. 'An',' says I, 'I bate ye dollars to doughnuts that there hain't a darn
thing ye can ask for at Bill Pike's store at Pleasant River that he can't go
down cellar, or up attic, or out in the barn chamber an' git for ye.' Well,
sir, he took me up, an' I borrered the money of Joe Dennett, who held the
stakes, an' we went right over to Bill Pike's with all the boys follerin' on
behind. An' the Gorham man never let on what he was going to ask for till the
hull crowd of us got inside the store. Then says he, as p'lite as a basket o'
chips, 'Mr. Pike, I'd like to buy a pulpit if you can oblige me with one.'

"Bill scratched his head an' I held my breath. Then says he, "Pears to me I'd
ought to hev a pulpit or two, if I can jest remember where I keep 'em. I don't
never cal'late to be out o' pulpits, but I'm so plagued for room I can't keep
'em in here with the groc'ries. Jim (that's his new store boy), you jest take
a lantern an' run out in the far corner o' the shed, at the end o' the hickory
woodpile, an' see how many pulpits we've got in stock!' Well, Jim run out, an'
when he come back he says, 'We've got two, Mr. Pike. Shall I bring one of 'em
in?'

"At that the boys all bust out laughin' an' hollerin' an' tauntin' the Gorham
man, an' he paid up with a good will, I tell ye!"

"I don't approve of bettin'," said Mrs. Wiley grimly, "but I'll try to