of hers. A learned man evidently, a man apparently at home and
sure of himself in a world long dead, but as helpless as a child in the
practical world of to-day. She liked him, she could not help liking him,
and it irritated her exceedingly to think that men like Raish Pulcifer
and Erastus Beebe should take advantage of his childlike qualities to
swindle him, even if the swindles were but petty.

"They shan't do it," she told Lulie Hallett, the next morning. "Not if I
can help it, they shan't. Somebody ought to look out for the poor thing,
half sick and with nobody of his own within goodness knows how many
miles. I'll look out for him as well as I can while he's here. My
conscience wouldn't let me do anything else. I suppose if I pick out his
other things the way I picked out that cap the whole of East Wellmouth
will be talkin'; but I can't help it, let 'em."

For the matter of that, the Beebes and the Blounts and Doanes were
talking already. And within a fortnight Miss Phipps' prophecy was
fulfilled, the whole of East Wellmouth WAS talking of Galusha Bangs.
Some of the talk was malicious and scandalous gossip, of course, but
most of it was fathered by an intense and growing curiosity concerning
the little man. Who was he? What was his real reason for coming to East
Wellmouth to live--in the WINTER time? What made him spend so many hours
in the old cemetery? Was he crazy, as some people declared, or merely
"kind of simple," which was the opinion of others? Mr. Pulcifer's
humorous summing-up was freely quoted.

"He may not be foolish now," observed Raish, "but he will be if he lives
very long with that bunch down to the lighthouse. Old Cap'n Jeth
and Zach and Primmie Cash are enough to start anybody countin' their
fingers. My opinion is, if you want to know, that this Bangs feller is
just a little mite cracked on the subject of Egyptians and Indians and
gravestones--probably he's read a lot about 'em and it's sprained his
mind, as you might say. That would account for the big yarns he tells
Prim about Africa and such. As to why he's come here to live, I cal'late
I've got the answer to that. He's poorer'n poverty and it's cheap livin'
down at Martha Phipps's. How do I know he's poor? Cripes t'mighty, look
at his clothes! Don't look much like yours or mine, do they?"

They certainly did not look much like Mr. Pulcifer's. Galusha's
trunk had arrived at last, but the garments in it were as drab and
old-fashioned and "flop