n the pail
on the snow and stared across the next ridge at the eastern horizon,
whitening after the sunset.

The third week in March was the week after town meeting!

"M-may be--c-can't tell," repeated Eben to himself, unconsciously
imitating Jethro's stutter. "Godfrey, I'll hev to git that ticket
straight from Amos."

Yes, we may have our suspicions. But how can we get a bill on this
evidence? There are some thirty other individuals in Coniston whose
mortgages Jethro holds, from a horse to a house and farm. It is not
likely that they will tell Beacon Hatch, or us; that they are going to
town meeting and vote for that fatherless ticket because Jethro Bass
wishes them to do so. And Jethro has never said that he wishes them
to. If so, where are your witnesses? Have we not come back to our
starting-point, even as Moses Hatch drove around in a circle.. And we
have the advantage over Moses, for we suspect somebody, and he did not
know whom to suspect. Certainly not Jethro Bass, the man that lived
under his nose and never said anything--and had no right to. Jethro
Bass had never taken any active part in politics, though some folks had
heard, in his rounds on business, that he had discussed them, and had
spread the news of the infamous ticket without a parent. So much was
spoken of at the meeting over which Priest Ware prayed. It was even
declared that, being a Democrat, Jethro might have influenced some of
those under obligations to him. Sam Price was at last fixed upon as the
malefactor, though people agreed that they had not given him credit for
so much sense, and Jacksonian principles became as much abhorred by the
orthodox as the spotted fever.

We can call a host of other witnesses if we like, among them cranky,
happy-go-lucky Fletcher Bartlett, who has led forlorn hopes in former
years. Court proceedings make tiresome reading, and if those who
have been over ours have not arrived at some notion of the simple and
innocent method of the new Era of politics note dawning--they never
will. Nothing proved. But here is part of the ticket which nobody
started:--

For

SENIOR SELECTMAN, FLETCHER BARTLETT.

(Farm and buildings on Thousand Acre Hill mortgaged to Jethro
Bass.)

SECOND SELECTMAN, AMOS CUTHBERT.

(Farm and buildings on Town's End Ridge mortgaged to Jethro
Bass.)

THIRD SELECTMAN, CHESTER PERKINS.

(Sop of some kind to the Established Church party. Horse and