give him the letter to read, an' asked dare he make some copies.
The stenugifer took 'em like lightnin', right there.

"The judge had a hard time of it, coughin' an' blowin' over that letter.
He's goin' to send some copies to the New York papers right off. He took
me acrost the hall and interduced me to Lawyer Ritchie. Lawyer Ritchie,
he read the letter too. 'A hero!' they called Nat; an' me 'A hero's
mother!'

"'We ain't goin' to forgit this, Mis' Haynes,' Lawyer Ritchie said.
'This here whole town's proud o' your Nat.'... My land! I couldn't sense
it all!... Me, Delia Haynes, gettin' her hand wrung, 'count o' anything
Nat'd b'en doin', by the big bugs round town! Judge Geer, he fetched 'em
all out o' their offices--Slade, the supervisor, and Fuller Brothers,
and old Sumner Pratt--an' all! An' Ben Watson asked could he have a copy
to put in the _Bi-weekly_. It's goin' to take the whole front page, with
an editor'al inside. He said the Rockville Center News'd most likely
copy it too.

"I was like in a dream!... All I'd aimed to do was to let some o' them
folks know that those people acrost the ocean had thought well of our
Nat, an' here they was breakin' their necks to git in on it too!...
Goin' down the street they was more of it. Lu Shiffer run right out o'
the hardware store an' left the nails he was weighin' to shake hands
with me; and Jem Brand came; and Lan'lord Peters come out o' the Valley
House an' spoke to me.... I felt awful public. An' Jim Beckonridge come
out of the Emporium to shake too.

"'I ain't seen you down in town fur quite a spell,' he sez. 'How are you
all up there to the farm?... Want to say I'm real proud o' Nat--a boy
from round here!' he sez.... Old Beckonridge, that was always wantin' to
arrest Nat fur takin' his chestnuts or foolin' down in the store!

"I just let 'em drift--seein' they had it all fixed fur me. All along
the street they come an' spoke to me. Mame Parmlee, that ain't b'en able
to see me fur three years, left off sweepin' her porch an' come down an'
shook my hand, an' cried about it; an' that stylish Mis' Willowby,
that's president o' the Civil Club, followed me all over the Square and
asked dare she read a copy o' the letter an' tell about Nat to the
schoolhouse next Wednesday.

"It seems Judge Geer had gone out an' spread it broadcast that I was in
town, for they followed me everywhere. Next thing I run into Reverend
Kearns and Reverend Higby, huntin' me hard. They bot