Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/39

 important article is required to appear on the table, twice in a week, on the evenings of Wednesday and Saturday. This ordinance, it seems, had but once been neglected since the building of their house. That night, a strange uproar awoke every member of the family, and frightful dreams disturbed their repose. Lo! in the morning, their culinary furnace was found prostrate, and every brick dislodged from its station; as if invisible agents had assumed the punishment of the offence. Cuffee, though somewhat diffuse in his narrations, drew no sign of attention from his sister, who greatly valued herself upon a solemn deportment at devotional seasons. At length, slowly rolling towards him an eye, where white remarkably predominated, she inquired into the nature of the book, which he held unopened in his hand.

"Catechize," he replied, with the tone of an indolent boy at school, equally reluctant to study, or to recite his lesson. But Beulah, moved with righteous zeal, drew her chair into a line with his, and enveloping the volume in her huge hand, took it from him with no gentle grasp.

By dint of spelling, she rendered the title-page vocal, which proved to be, "The Scholar's Introduction to the Science of Arithmetic. By Master Edward Cocker."

"That's a Catechise-Book, I s'pose!" she exclaimed with commendable asperity. Her brother hastily proceeded to justify himself, on the ground of a mistake made in the volume, before the candle was lighted. Wishing however to divert attention from this view of the