"So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot

-filled him pretty near up to his chin-and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore paws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, 'One-two-three-git!' and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l gave a heave, and hysted up his shoulders-so-like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use-he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

"The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder-so-at Dan'l and says again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for—I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him-he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man-he set the frog down and took out after the feller, but he never ketched him. And

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley

would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

14.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911) was a Boston woman who became known in the literary world through her mystical story The Gates Ajar, published in 1868. She wrote many other stories both long and short. Though she lived on into the twentieth century her work belongs to the older generation.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

(From Trotty's Wedding Tour)

I am fourteen years old and Jill is twelve and a quarter. Jill is my brother. That isn't his name, you know; his name is Timothy and mine is George Zacharias; but they've always called us Jack and Jill.

Well, Jill and I had an invitation to Aunt John's this summer, and that was how we happened to be there.

I'd rather go to Aunt John's than any where else in this world. When I was a little fellow I used to think I'd rather go to Aunt John's than to go to Heaven. But I never dared to tell.

She'd invited us to come on the 12th of August. It takes all day to get to Aunt John's. She lives at Little River in New Hampshire away up. You have to wait at South Lawrence in a poky little depot, . . . and you get some played out. At least I don't but Jill does. So we bought a paper and Jill sat up and read it. When he'd sat a minute and read along:

"Look here!" said he.

"Look where?" said I.

"Why, there's going to be a comet to-night," said Jill. "Who cares?" said I.

Jill laid down the paper, and crunched a pop-corn all up before he answered that. Then said he, "I don't see why father didn't tell us. I s'pose he thought we'd be frightened, or something. Why, s'posing the world did come to an end? That's what this paper says. 'It is

predicted' where's my place? O! I see 'predicted by learned men that a comet will come into con-conjunction with out plant'-no-'our planet this night. Whether we shall be plunged into a wild vortex of angry space, or suffocated with n-o-x-noxious gases, or scorched to a helpless crisp, or blasted at once into eternal an-ni-hi

A gust of wind grabbed the paper out of Jill's hand just then, and took it out of the window; so I never heard the rest.

"Father isn't a goose,' ," said I. "He didn't think it worth mentioning. He isn't going to be afraid of a comet at his time of life!"

So we didn't think any more about the comet till we got to Aunt John's. . . . There was company there. It wasn't a relation, only an old schoolmate, and her name was Miss Togy; so she'd come without an invitation, and had to have the spare room because she was a lady. That was how Jill and I came to be put in the little chimney bedroom.

That little chimney bedroom is the funniest place you ever slept in. . . . There'd been a chimney once, and it ran up by the window, and grandfather had it taken away. It was a big, old, old-fashioned chimney, and it left the funniest little gouge in the room! So the bed went in as nice as could be. We couldn't see much but the ceiling when we got to bed.

"It's pretty dark," said Jill; "I shouldn't wonder if it did blow up a little. Wouldn't it scare-Miss-Bogy!" "Togy," said I.

"Well, T-o—” said Jill; and right in the middle of it he went off as sound as a weasel.

The next thing I can remember is a horrible noise I can't think of but one thing in this world it was like, and that isn't in this world so much. I mean the Last Trumpet, with the Angel blowing as he blows in my old Primer.

But the next thing I remember is hearing Jill sit up in bed, for I couldn't see him, it was so dark,—and his, piping out the other half of Miss Togy's name just as he had left it when he went to sleep:

"Gy! Bo-gy! Fo-gy! Soa-ky!-O," said Jill, coming to at last, "I thought . . . why, what's up?"

I was up, but I couldn't tell what else was, for a little while. I went to the window. It was as dark as a great rat-hole out-of-doors, all but a streak of lightning and an awful thunder, as if the world was cracking all to pieces.

"Come to bed!" shouted Jill, "you'll get struck, and then that'll kill me."

I went back to bed, for I didn't know what else to do. We crawled down under the clothes and covered ourselves

all up.

"W-ould-you-call Aunt-John?" asked Jill. He was 'most choked. I came up for air.

"No," said I, "I don't think I'd call Aunt John."

I should have liked to call Aunt John by that time; but then I should have felt ashamed.

"I s'pose she has got her hands full with Miss Croaky, anyway," chattered Jill, bobbing up for a breath, and then bobbing under again.

By that time the storm was the worst storm I had ever seen in my life-it grew worse and worse. Thunder, lightning, and wind'! Wind, lightning, and thunder! Rain and roar and awfulness! I don't know how to tell how awful it was.

In the middle of the biggest peal we'd had yet, up jumped Jill. "Jack!" said he, "that comet!" I'd never thought of the comet till that minute; I felt an ugly feeling and a little cold all over. "It is the comet!" said Jill. "It is the Day of Judgment, Jack."

Then it happened. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to get my head under the clothes.

First there was a creak. Then a crash. Then we felt a shake as if a giant pushed his shoulder up through the floor and shoved us. Then we doubled up. And then we began to fall. The floor opened, and we went through. I heard the bed-post hit as we went by. . . Then I felt another crash. Then we began to fall again. Then we bumped down hard. After that we stopped falling. I lay still. My heels were doubled up over my head. I

thought my neck would break. But I never dared to stir. I thought I was dead.

By and by I wondered if Jill were not dead too. So I undoubled my neck a little and found some air. It seemed to be just as uncomfortable . . . to breathe without air when you were dead as when you weren't.

I called out softly, "Jill!" No answer. "Jill!" Not a sound. "O-JILL!”

But he did not speak. So then I knew Jill must be dead, at any rate. I couldn't help wondering why he was so much deader than I that he couldn't answer a fellow. Pretty soon I heard a rustling noise around my feet. Then a weak, sick kind of a noise-just the noise I always had supposed ghosts would make if they talked. "Jack?"

"Is that you, Jill?”

"I suppose so. Is it you, Jack?"

"Yes. Are you dead?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"I guess I must be if you are. How awfully dark it

is!"

'Awfully dark! It must have been the comet!"

"Yes; did you get much hurt?"

"Not much I say-Jack?"

"What?"

"If it is the Judgment Day-" Jill broke up. So did I. We lay as still as we could. If it were the Judgment Day

"Jill!" said I.

"Oh, dear me!" sobbed Jill.

We were both crying by that time. I don't feel ashamed to own up, as far as I'm concerned.

"If I'd known," said I, "that the Day of Judgment was coming on the 12th of August, I wouldn't have been so mean about that jack-knife of yours with the notch in it!"

"And I wouldn't have eaten up your luncheon that day last winter when I got mad at you," said Jill.

"Nor we wouldn't have cheated mother about smoking, vacations," said I.