ng eye--"now
is the time for him to try to do it."

"There ain't nobody goin' to try to do it," said the Cap'n, coming
up to him with frankly outstretched hand. He patted the rocks gently
from the arms of the indignant Mr. Crymble. "As a gen'ral thing I
stand up for matrimony and stand up for it firm--but I reckon I didn't
understand your case, Crymble. I apologize, and we'll shake hands
on it. You can have the school-house, and I'll do more'n that--I'll
pay for fixin' it over. And in the mean time you come up to my house
and make me a good long visit."

He shoved ingratiating hand into the hook of the other's bony elbow
and led him away.

"But I want my valise," pleaded Mr. Crymble.

"You leave that coffin-plate and epitaph with her," said the Cap'n,
firmly. "You're in for a good old age and don't need 'em. And they
may cheer up Mis' Crymble from time to time. She needs cheerin' up."

Hiram Look, following them out of the yard, yanked up the trespass
sign and advanced to Batson Reeves and brandished it over his head.

"Gimme it!" he rasped.

"What?" quavered Reeves.

"That paper I stood here and watched you makin' up. Gimme it, or I'll
peg you like I peg tent-pegs for the big tent."

And Reeves, having excellent ideas of discretion, passed over the
list of trespasses. He did not look up at the windows of the Crymble
house as he rode away with his brother, the squire. And what was
significant, he took away with him the neck-halter that, for
convenience' sake on his frequent calls, he had left hanging to the
hitching-post in the Crymble yard for many weeks.

XXVII

At last the Women's Temperance Workers' Union of Smyrna became
thoroughly indignant, in addition to being somewhat mystified.

Twice they had "waited on" Landlord Ferd Parrott, of the Smyrna
tavern--twelve of them in a stern delegation--and he had simply
blinked at them out of his puckery eyes, and pawed nervously at his
weazened face, and had given them no satisfaction.

Twice they had marched bravely into the town office and had faced
Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, and had complained that Ferd
Parrott was running "a reg'lar rum-hole." Cap'n Sproul had nipped
his bristly beard and gazed away from them at the ceiling, and said
he would see what could be done about it.

Mrs. Aaron Sproul, a devoted member of the W.T.W.'s, was appointed
a committee of one to sound him, and found him, even in the sweet
privacy of home, so singular