oes that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a
clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep
Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?"

"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I
do."

"Might set a lantern back o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't,"
suggested Brad Freeman.

"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented
Tom O'Neil irreverently.

"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might
as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer,
it's no more'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back
ag'in."

"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by
dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to
do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy
gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low
land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up!
Or, take it t' other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into
Sudleigh."

Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard him.
He slipped about from one group to another, and always the sentiment was
the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired so urgently
to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but all agreed
that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly.

"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't
do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell."

Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away,
and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated
discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public
soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest,
by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have his
way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the town
grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for taking a
vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the bell of
the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his neighbor. Had
death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! it went
solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another stroke
renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed man, a
hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in a