d down my way. He sued a poor, shiftless fellow
that had come from Pennsylvania to his daughter's funeral, and had him
arrested and taken off, crying, just before the funeral begun--after
they 'd even set the flowers on the coffin; and nobody'd speak to him
after that--they just let him alone; and after a while his wife took
sick of it--she was a nice, kindly woman--and she had sort of hysterics,
and finally he moved off West. And 't was n't long before the woman
died. Now, you can't undertake to do different from everybody else."

"Well," said Eli, "I know I wish it was done with."

Mr. Eldridge stretched his arms and yawned. Then he began to walk up and
down, and hum, out of tune. Then he stopped at Captain Thomas's chair.

"Suppose we try a ballot," he said. "He seems to give a little."

In a moment the foreman rapped.

"It is time we were taking another ballot, gentlemen," he said.

The sleepers rose, grumbling, from uneasy dreams.

"I will write 'guilty' on twelve ballots," said the foreman, "and if any
one desires to write in 'not,' of course he can."

When the hat came to Eli, he took one of the ballots and held it in his
hand a moment, and then he laid it on the table. There was a general
murmur. The picture which Mr. El-dridge had drawn loomed up before him.
But with a hasty hand he wrote in "not," dropped in the ballot, and
going back to his chair by the window, sat down.

There was a cold wave of silence.

Then Eli suddenly walked up to the foreman and faced him.

"Now," he said, "we 'll stop. The very next turn breaks ground. If you,
or any other man that you set on, tries to talk to me when I don't want
to hear, to worry me to death--look out!"

How the long hours wore on! How easy, sometimes, to resist an open
pressure, and how hard, with the resistance gone, to fight, as one that
beats the air! How the prospect of a whole hostile town loomed up, in
a mirage, before Eli! And then the picture rose before him of a long,
stately bark, now building, whose owner had asked him yesterday to be
first mate. And if his wife were only well, and he were only free from
this night's trouble, how soon, upon the long, green waves, he could
begin to redeem his little home!

And then came Mr. Eldridge, kind and friendly, to have another little
chat.

Morning came, cold and drizzly. An officer knocked at the door, and
called out, "Breakfast!" And in a moment, unwashed, and all uncombed,
except the tin-pedler,