Sam Lawson's Oldtown Fireside Stories. Stowe Harriet Beecher

you see how still he sets,’ says the parson to Huldy.

      “Huldy was ‘most dyin’ for fear she should laugh, ‘I’m afraid he ‘ll get up,’ says she, ‘when you do.’

      “‘Oh, no, he won’t!’ says the parson, quite confident. ‘There, there,’ says he, layin’ his hands on him, as if pronouncin’ a blessin’. But when the parson riz up, old Tom he riz up too, and began to march over the eggs.

      “‘Stop, now!’ says the parson. ‘I ‘ll make him get down agin: hand me that corn-basket; we ‘ll put that over him.’

      “So he crooked old Tom’s legs, and got him down agin; and they put the corn-basket over him, and then they both stood and waited.

      “‘That ‘ll do the thing, Huldy,’ said the parson.

      “‘I don’t know about it,’ says Huldy.

      “‘Oh, yes, it will, child! I understand,’ says he.

      “Just as he spoke, the basket riz right up and stood, and they could see old Tom’s long legs.

      “‘I ‘ll make him stay down, confound him,’ says the parson; for, ye see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk up.

      “‘You jist hold him a minute, and I ‘ll get something that ‘ll make him stay, I guess;’ and out he went to the fence, and brought in a long, thin, flat stone, and laid it on old Tom’s back.

      “Old Tom he wilted down considerable under this, and looked railly as if he was goin’ to give in. He staid still there a good long spell, and the minister and Huldy left him there and come up to the house; but they hadn’t more than got in the door before they see old Tom a hippin’ along, as high-steppin’ as ever, say in’ ‘Talk! talk! and quitter! quitter!’ and struttin’ and gobblin’ as if he’d come through the Red Sea, and got the victory.

      “‘Oh, my eggs!’ says Huldy. ‘I’m afraid he’s smashed ‘em!’

      “And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat enough under the stone.

      “‘I ‘ll have him killed,’ said the parson: ‘we won’t have such a critter ‘round.’

      “But the parson, he slep’ on’t, and then didn’t do it: he only come out next Sunday with a tip-top sermon on the ‘’Riginal Cuss’ that was pronounced on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed how every thing was allowed to go contrary ever since. There was pig-weed, and pusley, and Canady thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, and canker-worms, to say nothin’ of rattlesnakes. The doctor made it very impressive and sort o’ improvin’; but Huldy, she told me, goin’ home, that she hardly could keep from laughin’ two or three times in the sermon when she thought of old Tom a standin’ up with the corn-basket on his back.

      “Wal, next week Huldy she jist borrowed the minister’s horse and side-saddle, and rode over to South Parish to her Aunt Bascome’s, – Widder Bascome’s, you know, that lives there by the trout-brook, – and got a lot o’ turkey-eggs o’ her, and come back and set a hen on ‘em, and said nothin’; and in good time there was as nice a lot o’ turkey-chicks as ever ye see.

      “Huldy never said a word to the minister about his experiment, and he never said a word to her; but he sort o’ kep’ more to his books, and didn’t take it on him to advise so much.

      “But not long arter he took it into his head that Huldy ought to have a pig to be a fattin’ with the buttermilk. Mis’ Pipperidge set him up to it; and jist then old Tim Bigelow, out to Juniper Hill, told him if he’d call over he’d give him a little pig.