eover, if a stranger did come on any lawful
business, he might ask his way at the shop.

Most of the inhabitants were long-lived, early deaths (like that of the
little Miss Jessamine) being exceptional; and most of the old people
were proud of their age, especially the sexton, who would be ninety-nine
come Martinmas, and whose father remembered a man who had carried
arrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. The Grey Goose and
the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who kept their ages
secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any one's age, or
recalled the exact year in which anything had happened. She said that
she had been taught that it was bad manners to do so "in a mixed
assembly."

The Grey Goose also avoided dates, but this was partly because her
brain, though intelligent, was not mathematical, and computation was
beyond her. She never got farther than "last Michaelmas," "the
Michaelmas before that," and "the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas
before that." After this her head, which was small, became confused, and
she said, "Ga, ga!" and changed the subject.

But she remembered the little Miss Jessamine, the Miss Jessamine with
the "conspicuous" hair. Her aunt, the big Miss Jessamine, said it was
her only fault. The hair was clean, was abundant, was glossy, but do
what you would with it, it never looked like other people's. And at
church, after Saturday night's wash, it shone like the best brass fender
after a Spring cleaning. In short, it was conspicuous, which does not
become a young woman--especially in church.

Those were worrying times altogether, and the Green was used for strange
purposes. A political meeting was held on it with the village Cobbler in
the chair, and a speaker who came by stage coach from the town, where
they had wrecked the bakers' shops, and discussed the price of bread. He
came a second time, by stage, but the people had heard something about
him in the meanwhile, and they did not keep him on the Green. They took
him to the pond and tried to make him swim, which he could not do, and
the whole affair was very disturbing to all quiet and peaceable fowls.
After which another man came, and preached sermons on the Green, and a
great many people went to hear him; for those were "trying times," and
folk ran hither and thither for comfort. And then what did they do but
drill the ploughboys on the Green, to get them ready to fight the
French, and teach them the goose