er and fix it. If that bed ain't a
cripple I don't know what is."

Joel looked a trifle taken aback. His laugh this time was not quite as
uproarious.

"Guess you spoke the truth that time, Sarah, without knowin' it. Who is
it they say always speaks the truth? Children and fools, ain't it? Well,
you ain't a child scarcely, Sarah. Hope you ain't the other thing. Eh?
Ho, ho!"

Mrs. Macomber was halfway to the kitchen door, a pile of plates upon her
arm. She did not stop nor turn, but she did speak.

"Well," she observed, "I don't know. I was one once in my life, there's
precious little doubt about that."

She left the room. Young Kent and Captain Kendrick exchanged glances.
Mr. Macomber swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it and swallowed again.
Lemuel and Sarah-Mary, the two older children, giggled. The clock on the
mantel struck seven times. The sound came, to the adults, as a timely
relief from embarrassment.

Captain Kendrick looked at his watch.

"What's that?" he exclaimed. "Six bells already? So 'tis. I declare I
didn't think 'twas so late."

Joel rose to his feet, moving--for him--with marked rapidity.

"Seven o'clock!" he cried. "My, my! We've got to get under way, George,
if we want to make port at the store afore 'Liphalet does. Come on,
George, hurry up."

Kent lingered for a moment to speak to Sears Kendrick. Then he emerged
from the house and he and Joel walked rapidly off together. They were
employed, one as clerk and bookkeeper and the other as driver of the
delivery wagon, at Eliphalet Bassett's Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and
Shoes and Notion Store at the corner of the main road and the depot
road. Joel's position there was fixed for eternity, at least he
considered it so, having driven that same delivery wagon at the same
wage for twenty-two years. "Me and that grocery cart," Mr. Macomber was
wont to observe, "have been doin' 'Liphalet's errands so long we've come
to be permanent fixtures. Yes, sir, permanent fixtures." When this was
repeated to Mr. Bassett the latter affirmed that it was true. "Every
time the dum fool goes out takin' orders," said Eliphalet, "he stays so
long that I begin to think he's turned _into_ a permanent fixture. Takes
an order for a quarter pound of tea and a spool of cotton and then hangs
'round and talks steady for half an hour. Permanent fixture! Permanent
gas fixture, that's what _he_ is."

George Kent did not consider himself a permanent fixture at Bassett's.
H