At last the old parsonage is quite bare and deserted, though our successors, box and baggage, have moved in upon us, much to the annoyance of the females, who see with jealousy that the new arrival gets the lion’s share of attention, and that Brother Tipp, whose class-book we took from him, and who has backbitten us ever since, is courteous as a dancing-master with our rival.  We shall talk for six years to come—­that is, our mother—­of Bangs’s, the new-comer’s, impudence in feeding his horse on our oats, and shall never speak of him as Brother Bangs, but simply call him Bangs, emphasized.  We are not even sure that he will not turn his poultry loose before ours has been secured, and we boys, with great zeal, run down the roosters and ducks, giving them, if the truth must be told, longer chase than is necessary.  The aged muscovy, we are sorry to say, lames himself in the retreat, and the only goose on the premises hides among Powell’s, the neighbor’s, so that we cannot tell which from which.  However, the property is tied up at last in the several wagons; Sister Phoenix’s lunch has been eaten, and our father, the itinerant, in his shirt-sleeves, stands up, with pain and perspiration on his brow, to bid his flock good-by.

“Now, brethren,” he says, with a quiver at his throat, “my time is passing; I have finished the work appointed for me to do.  Renew the kindnesses you have done me and my little ones upon the good steward who is to replace me.  My heart weeps to cut the bonds which have held us so long together; but in this world I am a pilgrim and a stranger.  Let us all pray!”

As his shrill, broken voice goes up in a mingled wail and hosanna, we children peep by stealth into the working faces of the bystanders, and our own grow tearful, till our little sister cries aloud, and our mother falls into some fond matron’s arms.

Immediately our wagons are on the way.  The clustering village roofs and the church spire sink down behind.  We are too full of excitement to share the silence of our elders, and the passing objects while us to laughter and debate.

Swan Neck is a representative circuit.  It lies, as everybody knows, somewhere upon the Eastern shore—­that landmark and stronghold of Methodism.  The parsonage is in Crochettown, the county-seat, and the circuit comprises half a dozen churches down the neck, among the pine forests and on the bay side.  Our father tells our mother on the way of the advantages of the place, till we take it to be quite a metropolis.  He says that Wiggins, whom we succeed, gives a first-rate account of it.  One of the members (Judd) is a judge, and our church, in short, rules the roast thereabout, and makes the Episcopalians stand around, not to speak of the Baptists, who try as usual to edge us out.