actions.

Abner was not present, having gone at an early hour over to Lenox
furnaces, where he was acquainted, to carry the news from Northampton,
if it should not have arrived there, and notify the workmen that there
would be goings-on at Barrington, Tuesday, and they were expected to
be on hand. Paul Hubbard, also, had not come down from West Stockbridge,
although the news had reached that place last night. But from the
disposition of the man, there could be no question that he was busily
at work moulding his particular myrmidons, the iron-workers, into good
insurrectionary material. There was no doubt that he would have them
down to Barrington on time, whoever else was there.

In the dearth of any further details of the Northampton uprising, the
talk among the crowd on Stockbridge Green turned largely upon
reminiscences and anecdotes of the disturbances at the same place, and
at Hatfield four or five years previous. Ezra Phelps, who had been
concerned in them, having subsequently removed from Hatfield to
Stockbridge, enjoyed by virtue of that fact an oracular eminence, and
as he stood under the shadow of the buttonwood tree before the tavern,
relating his experiences, the people hung upon his lips.

"Parson Ely," he explained, "Parson Sam'l Ely wuz kinder tew the head
on us. He wuz a nice sorter man, I tell yew. He wuz the on'y parson I
ever seen ez hed any flesh in his heart for poor folks, 'nless it be
some o' them ere Methody an Baptis preachers ez hez come in sence the
war, an I callate they ain' reglar parsons nuther. Leastways, thuther
parsons, they turned Parson Ely aout o' the min'stry daown to Somers
whar he wuz, fer a tellin the poor folks they didn' git their rights.
Times wuz hard four or five year ago, though they warn't so all-fired