tice Simeon Porter, they waited
an hour because Jot Bascom did not come. They knew that something was
amiss, but it was only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was
not indispensable. He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never
missed a town meeting. He knew all the conditions attending any swapping
of horses that occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of
the trade and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and
who owed the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them.
In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence
could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot
Bascom. That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home
duties, when overborne by press of public service, was true. When
Diadema Bascom wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked,
or the pigs fed, she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk.

All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had,
therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons
who tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields.

These were the bulletins issues:--

The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, in the same
place where the old one had been,--the old one, viewed with awe for five
years by all the village small boys.

The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, had
arrived and gone to the tavern.

An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed!

The elephant had stepped through the floor!!

The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come!

And the "Cheriot"!!

This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, to
prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating over
the fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped short under
the elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. He pinched the
twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure himself that he was alive
and in his right mind. The precious coin had been the result of careful
saving, and his hot, excited hands had almost worn it thin. But alas for
the vanity of human hopes! When the magnificent red-and-gold "Cheriot"
was uncovered, that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the
door opened, and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead
the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. Little
Jim gav