MR. AXTELL.


PART I.

I cannot tell who built it. It is a queer piece of architecture, a
fragment, that has been thrown off in the revolutions of the wheel
mechanical, this tower of mine. It doesn't seem to belong to the
parsonage. It isn't a part of the church now, if ever it has been. No
one comes to service in it, and the only voiced worshipper who sends
up little winding eddies through its else currentless air is I.

My sister said "I will" one day, (naughty words for little children,)
and so it came to pass that she paid the penalty by coming to live in
the parsonage with a very grave man. And he preaches every Sunday out
of the little square pulpit, overhung by a great, tremulous
sounding-board, to the congregation, sitting silently listening below,
within the church.

I come every year to the parsonage, and in my visiting-time I occupy
this tower. It is quite deserted when I am away, for I carry the key,
and keep it with me wherever I go. I hang it at night where I can see
the great shadow wavering on the ceiling above my head, when the jet
of gas, trembling in the night-wind below, sends a shimmer of light
into my room.