aster, and there
followed a brief wrestle. "Chewing again to-day, sir," he added to me.

"Abe lemme have it," shrieked Josey. "Lemme go, or he'll come over and
fix you."

But the calm, chilly Eastman had ground the tobacco under his heel. "You
can understand how my hands are tied," he said to me.

"Readily," I answered.

"The men give Josey his way in everything. He has a--I may say an
unworthy aunt."

"Yes," said I. "So I have gathered."

At this point Josey ducked and slid free, and the united flock vanished
with jeers at us. Josey forgot they had insulted him, they forgot he had
beaten them; against a common enemy was their friendship cemented.

"You spoke of Sharon's warm way of espousing causes," said I to Eastman.

"I did, sir. No one could live here long without noticing it."

"Sharon is a quiet town, but sudden," remarked Stuart. "Apt to be
sudden. They're beginning about strawberry night," he said to Eastman.
"Wanted to know about things down in the saloon."

"How does their taste in elocution chiefly lie?" I inquired.

Eastman smiled. He was young, totally bald, the moral dome of his skull
rising white above visionary eyes and a serious auburn beard. He
was clothed in a bleak, smooth slate-gray suit, and at any climax of
emphasis he lifted slightly upon his toes and relaxed again, shutting
his lips tight on the finished sentence. "Your question," said he, "has
often perplexed me. Sometimes they seem to prefer verse; sometimes prose
stirs them greatly. We shall have a liberal crop of both this year. I am
proud to tell you I have augmented our number of strawberry speakers by
nearly fifty per cent."

"How many will there be?" said I.

"Eleven. You might wish some could be excused. But I let them speak to
stimulate their interest in culture. Will you not take dinner with me,
gentlemen? I was just sitting down when little Josey Yeatts brought me
out."

We were glad to do this, and he opened another can of corned beef for
us. "I cannot offer you wine, sir," said he to me, "though I am aware it
is a general habit in luxurious homes." And he tightened his lips.

"General habit wherever they don't prefer whiskey," said Stuart.

"I fear so," the school-master replied, smiling. "That poison shall
never enter my house, gentlemen, any more than tobacco. And as I cannot
reform the adults of Sharon, I am doing what I can for their children.
Little Hugh Straight is going to say his 'Lochinvar' very pleasin