Opening a Chestnut Burr

of sweet, low music; and how long ago was that? He looked at his watch; it was nearly two, and he must have slept several hours. He glanced around and saw that he was a

h more than Yankee curiosity, which was at the bottom of their superstitious questionings, I will pry into her power. But she w

er work also? Has she swept away the clouds with her broomstick? And there goes the din

sitting-room at that m

st be

sked, "How do you

ning to Mr. Walton, he said, abrupt

aid Mr. Walton, a

tinued he,

e you had experienc

, and in your

worse for it," said

t so well in months. Yo

iced upon

witchery this exceeds," said Annie, laughi

Gregory. "What possessed the old Puritans to persecute the Salem wi

f what was agreeable or otherwise scar

t into persecution with a zeal that abstract right can hardly account for. People will have their excitements, and

that among them were earnest men who did from good motives what appears very wrong to us. What seemed to them evil and destructive p

doctrinal errors. To refute and banish these would require much study and argument on the part of the opponent. It was so much easier to take

nie, "and the man killed merely goes into

e wrong, and that he had better have been content with

said Annie, satirically. "But you have not answered my question. Could not good, earnest men ha

g politicians of our time, who button-hole you and assert that the world will come to an end unless John Smith is elected. To me, the desperate earnestness of people who imagine it their mission to

pt their visions to themselves, and that Luther should have remained in his cell, and Col

am willing to argue with flesh and blood, but I would rather hear you sing. Still, since you have swe

ard, I doubt whether any one could unhorse you," she rep

are my detestati

r age. Of course it depends upon what kind of hobbies

d one idea, banging back and forth on a wooden horse, but making no progre

s some question of vital import, or a pursuit that promises good to himself and to others and that enlists his interest. He comes at last to give it his best energies and thought. The whole current of his life is setting in th

these words, that which caused him to regard her with inv

k she said, "If you detest a man with a hobby, wha

ted that you

is idiotic, narrow-browed, fussy and bustling, excessively obtrusive with his one idea, a woman must be like him wit

ritualized my wooden block into a Pegasus-the

hav

t is

smilingly over her shoulder, "You