and ran to the window. Then she broke
into a smothered laugh.

"Why, it's Kyan Pepper!" she exclaimed. "He must be coming to see you,
Aunt Keziah. And he's got on his very best Sunday clothes. Gracious! I
must be going. I didn't know you expected callers."

Keziah dropped the tack hammer and stood up.

"Kyan!" she repeated. "What in the world is that old idiot comin' here
for? To talk about the minister, I s'pose. How on earth did Laviny ever
come to let him out alone?"

Mr. Pepper, Mr. Abishai Pepper, locally called "Kyan" (Cayenne) Pepper
because of his red hair and thin red side whiskers, was one of Trumet's
"characters," and in his case the character was weak. He was born in the
village and, when a youngster, had, like every other boy of good family
in the community, cherished ambitions for a seafaring life. His sister,
Lavinia, ten years older than he, who, after the death of their parents,
had undertaken the job of "bringing up" her brother, did not sympathize
with these ambitions. Consequently, when Kyan ran away she followed him
to Boston, stalked aboard the vessel where he had shipped, and collared
him, literally and figuratively. One of the mates venturing to offer
objection, Lavinia turned upon him and gave him a piece of her mind, to
the immense delight of the crew and the loungers on the wharf. Then she
returned with the vagrant to Trumet. Old Captain Higgins, who skippered
the packet in those days, swore that Lavinia never stopped lecturing her
brother from the time they left Boston until they dropped anchor behind
the breakwater.

"I give you my word that 'twas pretty nigh a stark calm, but there was
such a steady stream of language pourin' out of the Pepper stateroom
that the draught kept the sails filled all the way home," asserted
Captain Higgins.

That was Kyan's sole venture, so far as sailoring was concerned, but he
ran away again when he was twenty-five. This time he returned of his
own accord, bringing a wife with him, one Evelyn Gott of Ostable. Evelyn
could talk a bit herself, and her first interview with Lavinia ended
with the latter's leaving the house in a rage, swearing never to set
foot in it again. This oath she broke the day of her sister-in-law's
funeral. Then she appeared, after the ceremony, her baggage on the wagon
with her. The bereaved one, who was sitting on the front stoop of his
dwelling with, so people say, a most resigned expression on his meek
countenance, looked up an