at she
avoided him, and he was too proud to go to the parsonage and so incur
ridicule and contempt.

Jethro was content to wait. That is a clew to his character throughout
his life. He would wait for his love, he would wait for his hate: he had
waited ten years before putting into practice the first step of a little
scheme which he had been gradually developing during that time, for which
he had been amassing money, and the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by the
way, had given him some valuable ideas. Jethro, as well as Isaac D.
Worthington, had ambitions, although no one in Coniston had hitherto
guessed them except Jock Hallowell--and Cynthia Ware, after her curiosity
had been aroused.

Even as Isaac D. Worthington did not dream of the Truro Railroad and of
an era in the haze of futurity, it did not occur to Jethro Bass that his
ambitions tended to the making of another era that was at hand. Makers of
eras are too busy thinking about themselves and like immediate matters to
worry about history. Jethro never heard the expression about "cracks in
the Constitution," and would not have known what it meant,--he merely had
the desire to get on top. But with Established Church Coniston tight in
the saddle (in the person of Moses Hatch, Senior), how was he to do it?

As the winter wore on, and March town meeting approached, strange rumors
of a Democratic ticket began to drift into Jonah Winch's store,--a
Democratic ticket headed by Fletcher Bartlett, of all men, as chairman of
the board. Moses laughed when he first heard of it, for Fletcher was an
easy-going farmer of the Methodist persuasion who was always in debt, and
the other members of the ticket, so far as Moses could learn of it--were
remarkable neither for orthodoxy or solidity. The rumors persisted, and
still Moses laughed, for the senior selectman was a big man with flesh on
him, who could laugh with dignity.

"Moses," said Deacon Lysander Richardson as they stood on the platform of
the store one sunny Saturday in February, "somebody's put Fletcher up to
this. He hain't got sense enough to act that independent all by himself."

"You be always croakin', Lysander," answered Moses.

Cynthia Ware, who had come to the store for buttons for Speedy Bates, who
was making a new coat for the minister, heard these remarks, and stood
thoughtfully staring at the blue coat-tails of the elders. A brass button
was gone from Deacon Lysander's, and she wanted to sew it on. Suddenly