un every time I throwed out a handful, but they didn't swallow
'em any more'n they would so many buckshot. But prices nor nothin' else
will ever git right, if I am any judge, till we git free silver. I tell
you, Alf, that man Bryant is the biggest gun, by all odds, that ever
belched fire in the defence of a helpless nation, and when them dratted
Yankees tricked 'im out of the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o'
slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen
to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a
fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon
was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?--why, Abe
Lincoln--an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and
tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its
uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls.
_That_ man"--Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the prongs of his fork at
the crayon portrait of Henley's predecessor, which, with shaggy mustache
and partially bald pate, in a new oaken frame, hung near the
clock--"that man was a Bryant supporter from the minute the
sixteen-to-one proposition electrocuted the world to the day of his
death."

"Electro_fied_," corrected Mrs. Henley. "You oughtn't to use words out
of the common. People don't understand them hereabouts."

"Well, they ought to grow up to it," Wrinkle grunted in his cup. "I read
more'n they do, I reckon, an' sometimes a word tickles me till I git it
out."

Henley ate his breakfast in silence. He was known to be a good talker
himself, but he seldom indulged the tendency when Wrinkle was present.
The meal over, he took his hat and went out. The road passing the
farm-house led straight into the main street of the village, and along
it he strode in the soothing, crisp air. His store stood on the square
which encompassed the stone court-house. The store was a plain wooden
building which had never been painted, but had received from time and
the weather a gray, fuzzy coat which answered every purpose. It was
about eighty feet long by thirty in width, and had a porch in front,
which was reached from the sidewalk by a few steps. Ascending to the
door, Henley unlocked it and proceeded from the rather dark interior to
unscrew the faded green window-shutters. These thrown back on the
outside, the light filled the long room, displaying two rows of counters
and shelving. The r