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The meetings are indeed out; the wagons have begun
to go by, and now the feet of scattered pedestrians clatter
along the wooden village sidewalks. A happy throng!
they who ride and they who walk; those in fine silks
and broadcloth, and those in cheap prints and homespun;
verily all are blessed whom the sun shines upon this
day, except one. If you are not lying on your back
among your neighbor's vines, with your neighbor's
watch-dog growling at your throat, what more felicity
can you desire?

There goes, with the rest, the sweet youth, Tasso
Smith, elegantly strutting. If he but knew! Behind
him — curious contrast! — walks the meek John Apjohn,
choking in his Sunday cravat, winking over it,
ever and anon, with his melancholy eyes, and screwing
his mouth into a serious one-sided twist, as he goes pondering
awful things. He passes within a stone's throw
of the crushed tomatoes, whose juice is oozing out from
under Mrs. Apjohn's unhappy shoulder-blades, but sees
not the pleasing sight for the intervening cabbages.

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And now Prudence, where she lies, can hear the familiar
sound of her own gate slammed. John has got home.

“To be sure, Prudy!” begins the cooper, as he enters
the house, carefully laying off his black hat the first
thing, and giving it a final polish with his red silk before
putting it away for the week. “Them was two dreadful
good sermons to-day. Desperate smart man, old Mr.
Hardwell, — as feeling a preacher as ever I sot under.
You should have heard him dwell upon the vanities of
this world this arternoon! All our pride and selfishness,
and what we call the good things of life, where'll they
all be in a few years?” he said. “You ought to have
heard him, Prudy; to be sure! to be sure!”

Indeed, Prudy would give anything just now if she
had heard him; even if she were but present to hear her
worthy John! How free-hearted and beatified she
would feel if she were at this moment taking off her silk
dress after church, instead of spoiling her calico gown
down there among the tomatoes!

“Why, where be you, Prudy?” says John, entering
the bedroom; for he had surely thought she was there,
not finding her in the kitchen. Still not much alarmed,
he takes off his Sunday coat and cravat; and having
laid the one away in a drawer, and hung the other up in
the closet, he feels more comfortable. “Prudy,” he
calls, “are you there?” putting his polished little head
up the unanswering stair-way.

No Prudence in the house, no Prudence in the garden,
where her husband looks next. What can it all

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mean? It is one of those little mysteries that appall the
imaginative John. He remembers that the back-door of
the house was open when he came in. The stove is
filled with fuel just ready to kindle. A fresh pail of
water has been drawn. The cloth is on the table. But
where is Mrs. Apjohn? Pale, at the wood-pile, the
cooper stands and startles the Sabbath stillness by feebly
trilling her name.

“Pru-d-u-n-ce!”

“D-u-n-ce!” echoes Abel Dane's shop, as if it were
laughing at him.

But what is that? Another voice! a faint, far-off,
stifled scream.

“John! John! help!”

“Where be ye?” cries the terrified John.

“Here!” says the voice.

It sounds as if it were in the well. Prudence in the
well! In an instant the cooper's vivid fancy pictures
that excellent and large-sized woman fallen, head-foremost
and heels upward, into the deep and narrow
cavity. How can she ever be got out? A rope tied
round her heels and several men strenuously hoisting, is
the image which flashes through his brain. He is at the
curb in a second; peering fearfully in, with his eyes
shaded by his hands; but making no discovery there, except
the silhouette of himself projected black upon the
glimmering reflection of the sky in the placid water.

“John! come quick!” calls the muffled voice again.

On the roof of the house this time! How came

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Prudence on the roof of the house? To run over to Abel
Dane's and borrow a long carpenter's ladder is John's
first thought. To get a good view of the roof, his next.
To this end he hastens down into the garden, and is
standing on tiptoe to discover Prudence on the ridgepole,
when once more calls the voice, this time unmistakably
behind him, —.

“Where be ye? and what's the matter?” gasps the
cooper, gazing all around in vain.

“Here I am, and you'll see what's the matter. Don't
make no noise, but come as quick as you can, and git
away this horrid dog!”

Then John Apjohn, rushing to the fence, sees the
prostrate woman, and sedentary dog, and the guilty tomatoes, —
some in the apron and basket, and some on
the ground. He clings to the fence, bareheaded, in his
shirt-sleeves, white as any cheese-curd, by trembling and
ghastliness quite overcome, and uttering not a word.

“Quick, I say!” cries Prudence on her back. “Take
off this dog, and I'll tell ye all about it by'm'by.”

Over the fence tumbles the astonished cooper. But
to take off the dog is not so easy a matter. Turk is
averse to being taken off. He glares and growls and
snaps at the little man, as if he would swallow him.

“I can't, Prudy!” falters John, retreating.

“Ketch right hold of him!” commands Prudence.
“Choke him! pull him!”

“I da'sn't!” articulates John.

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“If I had a man for a husband!” exclaimed Prudence.
“Git a club! Kill the brute!”

“To be sure! to be sure!” and John starts to find a
club. There is a pole leaning on an apple-tree near by.
He secures it, and hurries back to stir up Turk. The
combat begins, with John at one end of the pole and
Turk at the other. Turk seizes his end with his teeth;
John holds his in his hands; and there they stand.
Turk growls to make John let go; John shooes and steboys
to make Turk let go.

“Pull it away from him!” exclaims Prudence.

John pulls till he has dragged the dog half across the
good woman's waist, when, as it would seem, the sagacious
brute, seeing a chance for a fine strategic effect,
suddenly releases his grip, and leaves the pole with the
cooper, who loses his balance, staggers backward rapidly,
and sits down, with his Sunday trousers, in an
over-ripe muskmelon.

“Now take the pole,” says the commander-in-chief,
“and knock him on the head with it, hard!”

“I shall hit you!” utters John.

“Never mind me!” says the resolute Prudy.

Up goes the pole, unsteadily and slow.

“Ready?” says John.

“Yes; strike!”

And down comes the heavy, unwiedly weapon. Turk
sees it descending to damage him, and considers it honorable,
under the circumstances, to dodge. He is out
of the way before the radius has passed through one

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half the arc; but the momentum of the stroke is such
that it is impossible for the cooper to stay his hold; and
the blow alights upon Mrs. Apjohn's stomach.

“Ugh!” says Mrs. Apjohn.

“Now I've killed ye!” exclaims John, despairingly,
throwing away the weapon.

“Don't ye know no better'n to be murderin' me 'stid
of the dog?” cries Prudy.

“I didn't mean to!” murmurs the wretched man.
“Broke any ribs, think?”

“I don't care for my ribs, if I could only — Oh, dear!
why can't ye beat off this dog? Empty out them tomatuses,
and throw the basket over the fence, anyway.
And give me my apron. Quick!”

But Turk, also, has something to say about that.
Neither apron nor basket shall John touch; they are
confiscated.

“How come the tomatuses in the basket? in your
apron?” asks the cooper. “O Prudy, Prudy! To be
sure! to be sure!”

“Wal! wal! wal!” chafes the impatient woman.
“I s'pose I'm to lay here till doomsday, or till Abel's
folks come home. There they come now, — don't
they?”

“Yes,” answers the cooper. “They're late, on the
old lady's account. I'll tell Abel to come and call off
his dog.”

“Don't ye for the world! Squat right down; mabby
they wont see us!”

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“What! ye don't re'ly mean to say you — you've
been — hooking the tomatuses?” For hitherto John
has indulged a feeble hope that the affair could be honorably
explained.

“Squat down, I say!” And John squats, hugging
his knees, with his chin between them, — as ludicrous a
picture of dismay and terror as was ever seen. He
feels like a thief; he knows he looks like a thief; and
the storm of calamity and disgrace, which he has imagined
impending above his little bare, bald head so
long, he is sure is now going to burst.

And there the three wait, — Turk guarding both his
prisoner and the prizes; for the basket and apron are so
near that he can protect them without letting Prudence up.

“Prudy!” whispers John.

“What!” mutters Prudy.

“It's dreadful! it's dreadful!” moans John.

“Hold your tongue!” says Prudy.

The cooper sinks his chin still lower between his knees,
sighing miserably.

“Prudy!” — after a long pause.

“What do you want now?”

“I wish you'd gone to meetin' this arternoon, Prudy!”

“You can't wish so any more'n I do!”

“If you had only heard that sermon, Prudy!”

“Stop your noise about the sermon!”

Another long pause.

“Prudy!”

“Well! what?”

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“I wish I was dead! — don't you?”

“I wish this dog was dead!”

Upon which, to convince them that he is not nor anything
like it, Turk begins to bark.

“It's all over now!” says Prudence.

John feels that there is nothing left him but suicide.
He can never confront Abel Dane after this; so he looks
about him for something on which to beat out his brains.
No convenient and comfortable object for the purpose
meets his eye, but a good big squash. And before he
has time to consider which may prove the softer of the
two, his pate or the vegetable, in case of a collision, he
hears a foot in the grass. He twists his neck around on
his shoulders, as he crouches, softly turns up his timid
glance over the cabbages, and beholds the dreaded visage
of Abel Dane.

Abel stops and gazes, too much amazed to speak.
Turk wags his tail, and looks wistfully for approbation
of his exploit.

“Come here, Turk!” says the severe voice of Abel.

With ill-concealed misgivings, Turk takes his paws off
his captive's calico, drops his head between his fore legs,
and his tail between his hind legs, and cringes at his
master's feet.

Cooper John, having once turned round his head,
softly turns it back again, and sits as still, in his former
toad-like posture, as if he had seen the face of a Gorgon,
with the old-fashioned result. Only the rear slope of his
little, shining bald crown, his broad, striped suspenders

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crossed behind over the back of his clean Sunday shirt,
and a section of the Sunday trousers, bearing the imprint
of the aforesaid over-ripe melon, are visible to the
wondering eyes of Abel.

As for Prudence, she loses no time, but gathers herself
up as soon as Turk permits, and begins hurriedly
to shake and brush her gown.

“Wal, Abel Dane, this is a pooty sight for Sunday,
I 'spose you think! And so it is!” flirting violently,
and speaking as if he had done her an injury. “And I
want to know, now, if you think it's neighborly to keep
a brute like that, to tear folks to pieces that jest set a
foot on to your premises? For here he's kep' me
groanin' on my back an hour, if he has a minute.” Then,
turning sharply to her husband: “John Apjohn! what
are ye shirkin' there for?”

Thus summoned, the petrified man limbers, and rises
slowly upon his miserable feet; glancing, with those
woe-begone, large eyes of his, first at his wife, then at
Abel Dane, and lastly at the fliched tomatoes.

“I am sorry,” says Abel, “if my dog has put you to
any inconvenience. He didn't bite you, I hope!”

“No! well for him!” exclaims Prudence, red and
embarrassed, but trying still to pass the affair off with a
brave air. “The fact is jest this, Abel Dane: if you
begrutch me a few tomatuses, it's what your father never
done before ye, and I never expected it of you; and I'll
cheerfully pay you for 'em, if you'll accept of any pay;
and my husband here knows I only jest stepped over

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the fence to save a few that was bein' wasted, which I
thought was sech a pity, and you'd jest as lives we'd
have 'em; and I meant all the time to tell ye I took
some, when that plaguy dog!” —

Here, having poured forth these words in a wild and
agitated manner, the worthy woman broke down, and
wept and sobbed, and continued confusedly to brush her
gown. John stood by and groaned.

“Well, well, neighbors,” said Abel, “you're quite
welcome to the tomatoes. I haven't known what I
should do with 'em all, and I'm glad to get rid of 'em.
If you had come in through the gate, Turk wouldn't
have meddled with you.”

As he spoke, kindly and consolingly, Prudence only
cried the more, and blindly flirted her skirts; while
John, wretchedly bent, with a supplicating countenance,
approached his neighbor.

“Abel Dane,” said he, in a voice scarcely audible, it
was so weak and hoarse, “me and you've knowed each
other ever sence you was a child, and I knowed your
father 'fore ever you was born; and I believe I've always
had an honest name with you till now.”

“And so you have now, Mr. Apjohn,” said Abel,
cheeringly. “Don't let a little thing like this trouble
you. I understand you,” — and he shook the cooper's
helpless, cold hand with genuine cordiality.

“Thank ye, thank ye; to be sure!” murmured John.
I am an honest man; and, though things don't look jest
right, I own, yet you know, Abel Dane, I'd no more be

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guilty of takin' anything that didn't belong to me than
I would cut my own head off.”

Abel, pitying him sincerely, and seeing well enough
that this poor, shaking creature was innocent, whoever
was guilty, assured him again and again of his confidence
and good-will.

“Thank ye, thank ye; to be sure, to be sure!” said
John, gratefully, hunting in vain in his pockets and on
the ground for his red silk handkerchief to wipe his
eyes with. “And, if 'twon't be too much, I've one
request to make. 'Twould make talk if it should be
known, and we would never hear the last on't, probably;
and I'd ruther die at once than be pinted at.”

“I promise you,” interrupted Abel, “nobody shall
ever hear of it from me. Never fear; you won't be
pointed at. Now let's say no more about the matter.
Here are your tomatoes, Mrs. Apjohn; and, whenever
you want any more, you've only to come in through the
gate and get them.”

“I declare!” gulped the woman; “I've no words,
Abel! And, if you will be so kind as never to mention
it, I'll be so much obleeged!”

“I never will. So that's settled.” And Abel hurried
them away; for he saw Faustina approaching.

John took the basket of tomatoes, heavily against his
will, and Prudence, with a sick heart, gathered up her
apron with its original contents; for it would not do to
refuse the gift which she was willing to take before it
was given. And so, dejected and chagrined, making

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sickly attempts to utter their thanks to Abel and to be
civil to Faustina, who came out, splendid in silk, and
stared at them, the cooper and his wife departed through
the gate, and went home to their waiting, vacant house,
every room of which seemed conscious of the shame
that had befallen them, and the very atmosphere to be
heavy and depressed therewith.