tin' rather dull here in the village just
now"--Hiram yawned obtrusively--"we'd go out and join the ladies.
I reckon the company'd like to go along and set on the grass, and
pee-ruse nature for a little while, and eat up what's left in them
lunch-baskets."

Ten minutes later the Smyrna Ancients and Honorables took their
departure down the street bordered by the elms. Hiram Look and Cap'n
Aaron Sproul swayed comfortably on Imogene's broad back. The
fife-and-drum corps followed, and behind marched the champions,
dragging Hecla Number One on its ruckling trucks.

Then, with the bass drums punctuating and accenting, they sang:

"Rip-te-hoo! And a hip, hip, holler!
We'll lick hell for a half a dollar!"

And it wasn't till then that some bystander tore his attention away
long enough to stick a ladder up the elm-tree and let Colonel Gideon
Ward scrape his way despondently down.

XV

Probably Constable Zeburee Nute could not have picked out a moment
more inauspicious for tackling First Selectman Aaron Sproul on
business not immediately connected with the matter then in hand.

First Selectman Sproul was standing beside a granite post, pounding
his fist on it with little regard to barked knuckles and uttering
some perfectly awful profanity.

A man stood on the other side of the post, swearing with just as much
gusto; the burden of his remarks being that he wasn't afraid of any
by-joosly old split codfish that ever came ashore--insulting
reference to Cap'n Sproul's seafaring life.

Behind Cap'n Sproul were men with pickaxes, shovels, and
hoes--listening.

Behind the decrier of mariners were men with other shovels, hoes,
and pickaxes--listening.

The granite post marked the town line between Smyrna and Vienna.

The post was four miles or so from Smyrna village, and Constable Nute
had driven out to interview the first selectman, bringing as a
passenger a slim, pale young man, who was smoking cigarettes, one
after the other.

They arrived right at the climax of trouble that had been brooding
sullenly for a week. In annual town-meeting Smyrna and Vienna had
voted to change over the inter-urban highway so that it would skirt
Rattledown Hill instead of climbing straight over it, as the fathers
had laid it out in the old days for the sake of directness; forgetting
that a pail bail upright is just as long as a pail bail lying
horizontal.

First Selectman Sproul had ordered his men to take a certain
dire