e to the door, apparently was met
by language which no mother of a family could listen to, and retired in
strong hysterics. A little later the sun became again obscured, the
wind arose, rain fell, and the opportunity for going indoors and doing
nothing was once more availed of by all Sidon.

It was afternoon when Mr. Harkutt returned. He did not go into the
store, but entered the dwelling from the little picket-gate and steep
path. There he called a family council in the sitting-room as being
the most reserved and secure. Mrs. Harkutt, sympathizing and cheerfully
ready for any affliction, still holding a dust-cloth in her hand, took
her seat by the window, with Phemie breathless and sparkling at one side
of her, while Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the
other. To Mrs. Harkutt's motherly concern at John Milton's absence, it
was pointed out that he was wanted at the store,--was a mere boy anyhow,
and could not be trusted. Mr. Harkutt, a little ruddier from weather,
excitement, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, a little
more rugged in the lines of his face, and with an odd ring of defiant
self-assertion in his voice, stood before them in the centre of the
room.

He wanted them to listen to him carefully, to remember what he said, for
it was important; it might be a matter of "lawing" hereafter,--and he
couldn't be always repeating it to them,--he would have enough to do.
There was a heap of it that, as women-folks, they couldn't understand,
and weren't expected to. But he'd got it all clear now, and what he was
saying was gospel. He'd always known to himself that the only good that
could ever come to Sidon would come by railroad. When those fools talked
wagon road he had said nothing, but he had his own ideas; he had worked
for that idea without saying anything to anybody; that idea was to get
possession of all the land along the embarcadero, which nobody
cared for, and 'Lige Curtis was ready to sell for a song. Well, now,
considering what had happened, he didn't mind telling them that he had
been gradually getting possession of it, little by little, paying 'Lige
Curtis in advances and installments, until it was his own! They had
heard what those surveyors said; how that it was the only fit terminus
for the railroad. Well, that land, and that water-front, and the
terminus were HIS! And all from his own foresight and prudence.

It is needless to say that this was not the truth. But i