so dark that they could barely
distinguish each other. Their voices had to do it all.

"What you doing out here?" one of the deeper shadows demanded.

"Oh, nothing," said Ebenezer, irritably, "not a thing."

He did not ask them to go in the house, and the three stood there
awkwardly, handling the time like a blunt instrument. Then Simeon Buck,
proprietor of the Simeon Buck North American Dry Goods Exchange, plunged
into what they had come to say.

"Ebenezer," he said, with those variations of intonation which mean an
effort to be delicate, "is--is there any likelihood that the factory
will open up this Fall?"

"No, there ain't," Ebenezer said, like something shutting.

"Nor--nor this Winter?" Simeon pursued.

"No, sir," said Ebenezer, like something opening again to shut with a
bang.

"Well, if you're sure--" said Simeon.

Ebenezer cut him short. "I'm dead sure," he said. "I've turned over my
orders to my brother's house in the City. He can handle 'em all and not
have to pay his men a cent more wages." And this was as if something had
been locked.

"Well," said Simeon, "then, Abel, I move we go ahead."

Abel Ames, proprietor of the Granger County Merchandise Emporium ("The
A. T. Stewart's of the Middle West," he advertised it), sighed
heavily--a vast, triple sigh, that seemed to sigh both in and out, as a
schoolboy whistles.

"Well," he said, "I hate to do it. But I'll be billblowed if I want to
think of paying for a third or so of this town's Christmas presents and
carrying 'em right through the Winter. I done that last year, and Fourth
of July I had all I could do to keep from wishing most of the crowd
Merry Christmas, 'count of their still owing me. I'm a merchant and a
citizen, but I ain't no patent adjustable Christmas tree."

"Me neither," Simeon said. "Last year it was _me_ give a silk cloak and
a Five Dollar umbrella and a fur bore and a bushel of knick-knicks to
the folks in this town. My name wa'n't on the cards, but it's me that's
paid for 'em--_up_ to now. I'm sick of it. The storekeepers of this town
may make a good thing out of Christmas, but they'd ought to get some of
the credit instead of giving it all, by Josh."

"What you going to do?" inquired Ebenezer, dryly.

"Well, of course last year was an exceptional year," said Abel,
"owing--"

He hesitated to say "owing to the failure of the Ebenezer Rule Factory
Company," and so stammered with the utmost delicacy, and skipped a
measure.