Quincy determined to get even with Mrs. Putnam for the questioning she put him through, so he said, “Did you make your money speculating, Mrs. Putnam?”

“No,” said she, “pa made it by hard work on the farm; but he gave it all to me more’n fifteen year ago, and he hasn’t got a cent to his name.  He’s just as bad off as Jim Sawyer.  I feed him and clothe him and shall have to bury him.  I guess it seems kinder odd to ye, so I reckon I’ll have to tell ye the hull story.  I’ve told it a dozen times, but I guess it’ll bear tellin’ once more.  You see my husband here, Silas Putnam, was brought up religis and he’s allus been a churchgoin’ man.  We were both Methodists, and everythin’ went all right till one day a Second Advent preacher came along, and then things went all wrong.  He canoodled my husband into believin’ that the end of the world was comin’ and it was his duty to give all his property away, so he could stand clean handed afore the Lord.  My dander riz when I heerd them makin’ their plans, but afore my husband got deef he was great on argifyin’ and argumentin’, and I didn’t stand much show against two on ’em; but when Silas told me he was goin’ to give his property away I sot up my Ebenezer, and I says, ’Silas Putnam, if you gives your property to any one you gives it to me.’  So after a long tussle it was settled that way and the lawyers drew up the papers.  The night afore the world was goin’ to end he prayed all night.  You can imagine with that air voice of his’n I didn’t sleep a wink.  When mornin’ came—­it was late in October and the air was pretty sharp—­Silas stopped prayin’ and put on his white robe, which was a shirt of hisn’t I pieced out so it came down to his feet, and takin’ a tin trumpet that he bought over to Eastborough Centre, he went out, climbed up on the barn, sot down on the ridgepole and waited for Kingdom Come.  He sot there and tooted all mornin’ and ’spected the angel Gabriel would answer back.  He sot there and tooted all the arternoon till the cows come home and the chickens went to roost.  I had three good square meals that day, but Silas didn’t get a bite.  ’Bout six o’clock I did think of takin’ him out some doughnuts, but then I decided if he was goin’ up so soon it was no use a wastin’ em, so I put ’em back in the pantry.  He sot there and tooted all the evenin’ till the moon come up and the stars were all out, and then he slid down off’n the barn, and barked both his shins doin’ it, threw his trumpet into the pig pen, come into the house and huddled up close to the fire.  He didn’t say nothin’ for a spell, but finally says he, ’I guess, Heppy, that feller made a mistake in figurin’ out the date.’  ‘I guess, Silas,’ says I, ’that you’ve made an all-fired fool of yerself.  And if you don’t go to bed quick and take a rum sweat, I shall be a widder in a very short time,’ He was sick for more’n three weeks, but I pulled him through by good nussin’, and the fust day he was able to set up, I says to him, ’Now,