while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket. At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.

Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.

"It was a pretty bad smash-up?" I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.

"Wust kind," my informant assented. "More'n enough to kill most men. But
the Fromes are tough. Ethan'll likely touch a hundred."

"Good God!" I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone. "That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and
in hell now!"

Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and
pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek. "Guess he's been in
Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away."

"Why didn't he?"

"Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn't ever anybody
but Ethan. Fust his father--then his mother--then his wife."

"And then the smash-up?"

Harmon chuckled sardonically. "That's so. He had to stay then."

"I see. And since then they've had to care for him?"

Harmon