e might be no mistake about it. Down
in Blood's barber shop, Jim Blood had, as might be expected, the most
detailed information, for Clark had gone in there on his way to the
hotel and, sitting down, remarked "shave please" and at the end,
without another word, gave Jim fifty cents and walked out. And if you
add to all this the sound of the crier's bell mellowing softly up the
long street, it will be understood that the excitement was considerably
intensified. Even Filmer, as he ate supper, did not say much, but kept
his gaze on the lid of the teapot as though it were a Pandora's box in
which bubbled marvelous things that might be vomited any moment. But
at heart Filmer was not anxious. It was not his habit. Of all men he
knew best the folk of St. Marys, so he doubted not at all, and as a
matter of fact St. Marys had for mayor a much bigger and wiser man than
it ever suspected.

There may be communities now such as St. Marys was twenty-five years
ago, but one goes far to find them. Electricity has altered their
distinctive character. The traffic of half a continent glided
majestically past these wooded shores, with the deep blast of whistles
as the great vessels edged gingerly into the Government lock across the
river to be lifted to Superior, and another farewell blast as they
pushed slowly out, and lastly a trail of vanishing black smoke as they
dwindled westward to the inland sea. For seven months this procession
passed the town but never halted, till the people of St. Marys felt
like the farmer who, in mid field, waves a friendly hand to a speeding
train.

As a result folk knew each other to a degree which some would call
insufferably well, and yet they did not weary. It was a curious
condition in which life had few secrets and yet an ample privacy.
There was, as it happened, little to secrete, and simultaneously there
was no straining of hospitality. In these close quarters each was
aware that the others knew what he or she could reasonably do, and, in
natural consequence, did it with grace and simple ease. For years
before the railway pushed up from Sudbury, the outer world was brought
into touch when the bows of the bi-weekly steamer bumped softly against
the big stringers of Filmer's dock, and papers and letters were thrown
on a buckboard and galloped to the post office where presently the
community gathered and talked.

There was no telephone to jangle, no electric light and no waterworks,
but i