o see Mary Jaquith?" asked Mrs. Tree. "Well, she's engaged, and
you can't. Here! give me your arm, Viny, and take me over to the girls'.
I want to see how Phoebe is this morning. She was none too spry
yesterday."

CHAPTER VI.

THE NEW POSTMASTER

Politics had little hold in Elmerton. When any question of public
interest was to be settled, the elders of the village met and settled
it; if they disagreed among themselves, they went to Mrs. Tree, and she
told them what to do. People sometimes wondered what would happen when
Mrs. Tree died, but there seemed no immediate danger of this.

"Truth and Trees live forever!" was the saying in the village.

When Israel Nudd, the postmaster, died, Elmerton found little difficulty
in recommending his successor. The day after his funeral, the elders
assembled at the usual place of meeting, the post-office piazza. This
was a narrow platform running along one side of the post-office
building, and commanding a view of the sea. A row of chairs stood along
the wall on their hind legs. They might be supposed to have lost the use
of their fore legs, simply because they never were used. In these chairs
the elders sat, and surveyed the prospect.

"Tide's makin'," said John Peavey.

No one seemed inclined to contradict this statement.

"Water looks rily," John Peavey continued. "Goin' to be a change o'
weather."

"I never see no sense in that," remarked Seth Weaver. "Why should a
change of weather make the water rily beforehand? Besides, it ain't."

"My Uncle Ammi lived to a hundred and two," said John Peavey, slowly,
"and he never doubted it. You're allers contrary, Seth. If I said I had
a nose on my face, you'd say it warn't so."

"Wal, some might call it one," rejoined Seth, with a cautious glance. "I
ain't fond of committin' myself."

"Meetin' come to order!" said Salem Rock, interrupting this preliminary
badinage.

"Brether--I--I would say, gentlemen, we have met to recommend a
postmaster for this village, in the room of Israel Nudd, diseased. What
is your pleasure in this matter? I s'pose Homer'd ought to have it,
hadn't he?"

The conclave meditated. No one had the smallest doubt that Homer ought
to have it, but it was not well to decide matters too hastily.

"Homer's none too speedy," said Abram Cutter. "He gets to moonin' over
the mail sometimes, and it seems as if you'd git Kingdom Come before you
got the paper. But I never see no harm in Home."

"Not a mite