tely, because to Mr. Price appertained
a certain ghostlike quality of flitting, and to Mr. Price's horse and
wagon likewise. He drew up for a brief moment when he saw Wetherell.

"Wouldn't hurry back if I was you, Will."

"Why not?"

Mr. Price leaned out of the wagon.

"Bije has come over from Clovelly to spy around a little mite."

It was evident from Mr. Price's manner that he regarded the storekeeper
as a member of the reform party.

"What did he say, Daddy?" asked Cynthia, as Wetherell stood staring
after the flitting buggy in bewilderment.

"I haven't the faintest idea, Cynthia," answered her father, and they
walked on.

"Don't you know who 'Bije' is?

"No," said her father, "and I don't care."

It was almost criminal ignorance for a man who lived in that part of
the country not to know Bijah Bixby of Clovelly, who was paying a
little social visit to Coniston that day on his way home from the state
capital,--tending, as it were, Jethro's flock. Still, Wetherell must be
excused because he was an impractical literary man with troubles of
his own. But how shall we chronicle Bijah's rank and precedence in
the Jethro army, in which there are neither shoulder-straps nor annual
registers? To designate him as the Chamberlain of that hill Rajah, the
Honorable Heth Sutton, would not be far out of the way. The Honorable
Heth, whom we all know and whom we shall see presently, is the man of
substance and of broad acres in Clovelly: Bijah merely owns certain
mortgages in that town, but he had created the Honorable Heth
(politically) as surely as certain prime ministers we could name have
created their sovereigns. The Honorable Heth was Bijah's creation, and a
grand creation he was, as no one will doubt when they see him.

Bijah--as he will not hesitate to tell you--took Heth down in his pocket
to the Legislature, and has more than once delivered him, in certain
blocks of five and ten, and four and twenty, for certain considerations.
The ancient Song of Sixpence applies to Bijah, but his pocket was
generally full of proxies instead of rye, and the Honorable Heth was
frequently one of the four and twenty blackbirds. In short, Bijah was
the working bee, and the Honorable Heth the ornamental drone.

I do not know why I have dwelt so long on such a minor character as
Bijah, except that the man fascinates me. Of all the lieutenants in the
state, his manners bore the closest resemblance to those of Jethro Bass.
When he w