Sez Arville--"Where would Cornelius Jr. go if he didn't go to the Fair?"

Cornelius Jr. drinks awful and is onstiddy, and Miss Cork hemmed and
hawed, and finally said, in kind of a meachin' way--

"Why, to meetin', of course."

He hadn't been in a meetin'-house for two years, and we all knew it,
and Miss Cork knew that we knew it--hence the meach.

"He don't go to meetin' here to Jonesville," sez Arville.

[Illustration: "He don't go to meetin' here."]

It wuz real mean in her, but I spoze it wuz to pay Miss Cork off for her
aggravatin'.

And she went on, "I live right acrost the road from Fasset's saloon, and
I see him and more'n a dozen other Jonesvillians there most every
Sunday.

"Goin' to Chicago hain't a-goin' to born a man agin, and change all
their habits and ways to once, and I believe if Cornelius Jr. didn't go
to the Fair he would go to worse places."

"Well," sez Miss Cornelius Cork, "if he did, I wouldn't have to bear the
sin. I feel that it is my duty to lift my voice and my strength aginst
the Sunday openin' of the Fair, and even if the boys did go to worse
places, my conscience would be clear; the sin wouldn't rest on my head."