“Le’s tar an’ feather him.”

“No, we’ll just look at him a few minutes,” Rodney Barnes shouted.  “He’s one o’ the greatest curiosities that ever came to this town.”

The slanderer, thoroughly frightened, stood silent a few moments like a prisoner in the stocks.  Soon the grocer let him in at an upper window.

Then the loud voice of Rodney Barnes rang like a trumpet in the words: 

“Any man who says a mean thing of another when he can’t prove it ought to be treated in the same way.”

“That’s so,” a number of voices answered.

The slanderer stayed in retirement the rest of the day and the incident passed into history, not without leaving its impression on the people of the two towns.

My life went on with little in it worth recording until the letter came.  I speak of it as “the letter,” because of its effect upon my career.  It was from Sally, and it said: 

“DEAR BART—­It’s all over for a long time, perhaps forever—­that will depend on you.  I shall be true to you, if you really love me, even if I have to wait many, many years.  Mother and father saw and read your letter.  They say we are too young to be thinking about love and that we have got to stop it.  How can I stop it?  I guess I would have to stop living.  But we shall have to depend upon our memories now.  I hope that yours is as good as mine.  Father says no more letters without his permission, and he stamped his foot so hard that I think he must have made a dent in the floor.  Talk about slavery—­what do you think of that?  Mother says that we must wait—­that it would make father a great deal of trouble if it were known that I allowed you to write.  I guess the soul of old Grimshaw is still following you.  Well, we must stretch out that lovely day as far as we can.  Its words and its sunshine are always in my heart.  I am risking the salvation of my soul in writing this.  But I’d rather burn forever than not tell you how happy your letter made me, dear Bart.  It is that Grimshaw trouble that is keeping us apart.  On the third of June, 1844, we shall both be twenty-one—­and I suppose that we can do as we please then.  The day is a long way off, but I will agree to meet you that day at eleven in the morning under the old pine on the river where I met you that day and you told me that you loved me.  If either or both should die our souls will know where to find each other.  If you will solemnly promise, write these words and only these to my mother—­Amour omnia vincit, but do not sign your name.

     “SALLY.”

What a serious matter it seemed to me then!  I remember that it gave Time a rather slow foot.  I wrote the words very neatly and plainly on a sheet of paper and mailed it to Mrs. Dunkelberg.  I wondered if Sally would stand firm and longed to know the secrets of the future.  More than ever I was resolved to be the principal witness in some great matter, as my friend in Ashery Lane had put it.