a fire in a cook-stove."

On this occasion Foreman Look had responded nobly to the well-known
gastronomic call of his Ancients. No one understood better than he
the importance of the commissary in a campaign. The dinner he had
given the Ancients to celebrate his election as foreman had shown
him the way to their hearts.

Bringing up the rear had rumbled one of his circus-vans. Now, with
the eyes of the hungry multitude on him, he unlocked the doors and
disclosed an interior packed full of individual lunch-baskets. His
men cheered lustily and formed in line.

Foreman Look gazed on his cohorts with pride and fondness.

"Gents," he said, in a clarion voice that took all the bystanders
into his confidence, "you're never goin' to make any mistake in
followin' me. Follow me when duty calls--follow me when pleasure
speaks, and you'll always find me with the goods."

He waved his hand at the open door of the van.

Two ladies had been awaiting the arrival of the Ancients in the square,
squired by a stout man in blue, who scruffed his fingers through his
stubbly gray beard from time to time with no great ease of manner.
Most of the spectators knew him. He was the first selectman of Smyrna,
Cap'n Aaron Sproul. And when the ladies, at a signal from Foreman
Look, took stations at the van door and began to distribute the
baskets, whisperings announced that they were respectively the wives
of Cap'n Sproul and the foreman of Hecla One. The ladies wore red,
white, and blue aprons, and rosettes of patriotic hues, and their
smiling faces indicated their zest in their duties.

Uncle Trufant, as a hound scents game, sniffed Cap'n Sproul's uneasy
rebelliousness, and seemed to know with a sixth sense that only
Hiram's most insistent appeals to his friendship, coupled with the
coaxings of the women-folk, had dragged him down from Smyrna. Uncle
Trufant edged up to him and pointed wavering cane at the festive scene
of distribution.

"Seems to be spendin' his money on 'em, all free and easy, Cap'n."

The Cap'n scowled and grunted.

"It's good to have a lot of money like he's got. That's the kind of
a foreman them caterpillars is lookin' for. But if greenbacks growed
all over him, like leaves on a tree, they'd keep at him till they'd
gnawed 'em all off."

He glowered at the briskly wagging jaws and stuffed cheeks of the
feeding proteges of Foreman Look.

"I reckon he'll wake up some day, same's you did, and reelize what
they're try