the pleasure of his most sumptuous entertainments.

Economical, not to say penurious, stewards demanded an "account of
everything given to the preachers;" but Mrs. Arnold insisted that besides
salary matters presents were needed, and it was the privilege of that house
to give them at pleasure, and the left hand must not know what the right
hand conferred. Often the minister himself knew nothing of it until some
one of his family searched the box of his carriage seat, which they were
not slow to do when it came from certain parts of the circuit--some article
of provision for the table, common and plenty enough in the cellar or dairy
of the farm, but not certain to be flush in the parsonage; some tidbit or
condiment to humor a delicate appetite; some choice fruits or knickknacks
for the children; some material from the sheep or flax of the farm spun by
her own diligent fingers to be made up in the lonely parsonage for the wife
or children, or underwear for the man of God. When the minister's family
was within reach of this very busy mother in Israel she would often relieve
the loneliness, and sometimes the wants, experienced in his "long rounds"
by her visits to the sacred rooms, which in those early years of Methodism
were oftener parts of some kind member's home than a regular "parsonage"
or "rectory." So when the weary itinerant would return and find that his
family had not been entirely neglected in his absence he would take new
courage to pursue his toilsome way.

As already intimated, Mrs. Arnold usually made the "junior preacher" of the
circuit an object of motherly care. He was generally a single man in those
early days, and often scarcely out of his boyhood. Many a worn garment was
overhauled and repaired; many a pair of new warm socks or mittens was laid
with new underwear upon his pillow.

Although for several weeks of the year he and his horse had made the Arnold