rning. But he still insisted that
he didn't propose to let the consolidated Todds and Wards of Smyrna
bunco him into taking the position, and said that he should attend
the next meeting of the Ancients and resign.

But when, on the third evening after his election, the enthusiastic
members of the Smyrna A. & H.F.A. came marching up from the village,
the brass band tearing the air into ribbons with cornets and
trombones, his stiff resolve wilted suddenly. He began to grin
shamefacedly under his grizzled beard, and hobbled out onto the porch
and made them a stammering speech, and turned scarlet with pride when
they cheered him, and basked in the glory of their compliments, and
thrilled when they respectfully called him "Chief." He even told
Louada Murilla that she was a darling, when she, who had been
forewarned, produced a "treat" from a hiding-place in the cellar.

"I knew you'd appreciate it all as soon as you got wonted to the honor,
Aaron," she whispered, happy tears in her eyes. "It's the social
prominence--that's all there is to it. There hasn't been a fire in
the town for fifteen years, and you aren't going to be bothered one
mite. Oh, isn't that band just lovely?"

The Cap'n went to bed late that night, his ears tingling with the
adulation of the multitude, and in his excited insomnia
understanding for the first time in his life the words: "Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown." He realized more fully now that his
shipmaster days had given him a taste for command, and that he had
come into his own again.

VI

The new chief of the Ancients devoted the first hours of the next
morning to the arrangement of his fire-fighting gear in the front
hall, and when all the items had been suspended, so that they would
be ready to his hand as well as serve as ornament, he went out on
the porch and sunned himself, revelling in a certain snug and
contented sense of importance, such as he hadn't felt since he had
stepped down from the quarter-deck of his own vessel. He even gazed
at the protruding and poignant centre of that rose on his carpet
slipper with milder eyes, and sniffed aromatic whiffs of liniment
with appreciation of its invigorating odor.

It was a particularly peaceful day. From his porch he could view a
wide expanse of rural scenery, and, once in a while, a flash of sun
against steel marked the location of some distant farmer in his
fields. There were no teams in sight on the highway, for the men