halcyon harvest as rapidly as he could.

"I was going to put them on exhibition at the centennial, and make
them the great feature of the day," mumbled the poet, apologetically.

"So do! So do!" advised the Cap'n with bitter irony. "I can see a
ramjam rush of the people away from the tub-squirt, right in the
middle of it, to look at them autographs. I can see 'em askin' the
band to stop playin' so that they can stand and meditate on them
letters. It'll bust up the hoss-trot. Folks won't want to get away
from them letters long enough to go down to the track. I wish I'd
'a' knowed this sooner, Pote Tate. Take them letters and your pome,
and we wouldn't need to be spendin' money and foolin' it away on the
other kind of a programmy we've got up! Them Merino rams from Vienny,
Canaan, and surroundin' towns that 'll come in here full of hell and
hard cider will jest love to set down with you and study autographs
all day!"

Mr. Tate flushed under the satire by which the Cap'n was expressing
his general disgust at Smyrna's expensive attempt to celebrate. He
exhibited a bit of spirit for the first time in their intercourse.

"The literary exercises ought to be the grand feature of the day,
sir! Can a horse-trot or a firemen's muster call attention to the
progress of a hundred years? I fear Smyrna is forgetting the main
point of the celebration."

"Don't you worry any about that, Pote," snapped the selectman. "No
one round here is losin' sight of the main point. Main point is for
churches and temperance workers and wimmen's auxiliaries to sell as
much grub as they can to visitors, and for citizens to parade round
behind a brass-band like mules with the spring-halt, and to spend
the money that I had ready to clear off the town debt. And if any
one thinks about the town bein' a hundred years old, it'll be next
mornin' when he wakes up and feels that way himself. You and me is
the losin' minority this time, Pote. I didn't want it at all, and
you want it something diff'runt." He looked the gaunt figure up and
down with a little of the sympathy that one feels for a fellow-victim.
Then he gave out stamps for the letters. "As long as it's got to be
spent, this is about the innocentest way of spendin' it," he
muttered.

XXXII

As the great occasion drew nearer, Mr. Tate redoubled his epistolary
efforts. He was goaded by two reasons. He had not secured his notables
for the literary programme; he would soon have neither ex