necks. In about two shakes she'd hustled Homer into a rocking-chair,
wedged him in place with pillows, wrapped a blanket around his feet, and
shoved him up to a table where there was a hungry man's layout of clam
fritters, canned corn, boiled potatoes and hot mince pie.

There wasn't any use for Homer to register a kick on the bill-of-fare.
She was too busy tellin' him how much good the things would do him, and
how he must eat a lot or she'd feel bad, to listen to any remarks of his
about toasted crackers. For supper there was fried fish, apple sauce and
hot biscuit, and Homer had to take his share. He was glad to go to bed
early. She didn't object to that.

Mother Bickell's house was right in the middle of the town, with a
grocery store on one side and the postoffice on the other. Homer had a
big front room with three windows on Main Street. There was a strip of
plank sidewalk in front of the house, so that you didn't miss any
footfalls. Mother Bickell could tell who was goin' by without lookin'.

Leonidas and me put in the evening hearin' her tell about some of the
things that had happened to her oldest boy. He'd had a whirl out of
most everything but an earthquake. After that we had an account of how
she'd buried her two husbands. About ten o'clock we started for bed,
droppin' in to take a look at Homer. He was sittin' up, wide awake and
lookin' worried.

"How many people are there in this town?" says he.

"About a thousand," says Leonidas. "Why?"

"Then they have all marched past my windows twice," says Homer.

"Shouldn't wonder," says Leonidas. "They've just been to the postoffice
and back again. They do that four times a day. But you mustn't mind.
Just you thank your stars you're down here where it's nice and quiet.
Now I'd go to sleep if I was you."

Homer said he would. I was ready to tear off a few yards of repose
myself, but somehow I couldn't connect. It was quiet, all right--in
spots. Fact is, it was so blamed quiet that you could hear every rooster
that crowed within half a mile. If a man on the other side of town shut
a window you knew all about it.

I was gettin' there though, and was almost up to the droppin'-off place,
when some folks in a back room on the next street begins to indulge in a
family argument. I didn't pay much notice to the preamble, but as they
warmed up to it I couldn't help from gettin' the drift. It was all
about the time of year that a feller by the name of Hen Dorsett had