summer--when the mosquitoes lie in wait to leeward like buccaneers
until, sighting the luckless wayfarer in the offing, they drive down
before the wind in clouds, literally to eat him alive. They are skilled
navigators, those Trumet road mosquitoes, and they know the advantage
of snug harbors under hat brims and behind spreading ears. And each
individual smashed by a frantic palm leaves a thousand blood relatives
to attend his funeral and exact revenge after the Corsican fashion.

Now, in December, there were, of course, no mosquitoes, but the wind
tore across those bare hilltops in gusts that rocked the buggy on its
springs. The bayberry bushes huddled and crouched before it. The sky was
covered with tumbling, flying clouds, which changed shape continually,
and ripped into long, fleecy ravelings, that broke loose and pelted on
until merged into the next billowy mass. The bay was gray and white, and
in the spots where an occasional sunbeam broke through and struck it,
flashed like a turned knife blade.

Bailey drove with one hand and held his hat on his head with the other.
The road had been deeply rutted during the November rains, and now the
ruts were frozen. The buggy wheels twisted and scraped as they turned in
the furrows.

"What's the matter?" asked the schoolmistress, shouting so as to be
heard above the flapping of the buggy curtains. "Why do you watch that
wheel?"

"'Fraid of the axle," whooped Mr. Bangs in reply. "Nut's kind of loose,
for one thing, and the way the wheel wobbles I'm scart she'll come off.
Call this a road!" he snorted indignantly. "More like a plowed field a
consider'ble sight. Jerushy, how she blows! No wonder they raise so many
deef and dumb folks in Trumet. I'd talk sign language myself if I lived
here. What's the use of wastin' strength pumpin' up words when they're
blowed back down your throat fast enough to choke you? Git dap, Henry!
Don't you see the meetin' house steeple? We're most there, thank the
goodness."

In Trumet Center, which is not much of a center, Miss Dawes alighted
from the buggy and entered a building bearing a sign with the words
"Metropolitan Variety Store, Joshua Atwood, Prop'r, Groceries, Coal, Dry
Goods, Insurance, Boots and Shoes, Garden Seeds, etc." A smaller sign
beneath this was lettered "Justice of the Peace," and one below that
read "Post Office."

She emerged a moment later, followed by an elderly person in a red
cardigan jacket and overalls.

"Take