iram. "I never was so thunderin' mad in my life. When I go
to regimental reunions the boys just joke the life out of me. You see I
was blowin' my bugle for a charge, and the boys were goin' ahead in
great style, when a shell struck a fence about twenty feet off. The
shell didn't hit me, but a piece of that darned fence came whizzin'
along and struck me where I eat, and I had a dozen stummick aches inside
o' half a minute. I just dropped my bugle and clapped my hands on my
stummick and yelled so loud that the boys told me afterwards that they
were afraid I had busted my bugle."

Quincy laid back in his chair and laughed heartily.

"What do the boys say to you when you go to the reunions?" he asked.

"They tell me to take a little whiskey for my stummick's sake," said
Hiram, "and some of them advise me to put on a plaster, and, darn 'em,
they always take me and toss me in a blanket every time I go, and onct
they made me a present of a bottleful of milk with a piece of rubber
hose on top of it. They said it would be good for me, but I chucked it
at the feller's head, darn him."

Quincy had another good laugh. Then he resumed his usual grave
expression and asked, "What town offices does the singing-master hold?"

"Well," said Hiram, "he is fence viewer and hog reeve and pound keeper,
but the only thing he gets much money out of is tax collector. He gets
two per cent on about thirty thousand dollars, which gives him about ten
dollars a week on an average, 'cause he don't get no pay if he don't
collect."

"Did he get a big vote for the place?" asked Quincy.

"No," said Hiram "he just got in by the skin of his teeth; he had last
town meetin' two more votes than Wallace Stackpole, and Wallace would
have got it anyhow if it hadn't been for an unfortunate accident."

"How was that?" asked Quincy.

"Well, you see," said Hiram, "two or three days before town meetin'
Wallace went up to Boston. He got an oyster stew for dinner, and it made
him kinder sick, and some one gave him a drink of brandy, and I guess
they gave him a pretty good dose, for when he got to Eastborough Centre
they had to help him off the train, 'cause his legs were kinder weak.
Well, 'Bias Smith, who lives over to West Eastborough, he is the best
talker we've got in town meetin'. He took up the cudgels for Wallace,
and he just lammed into those mean cusses who'd go back on a man 'cause
he was sick and took a little too much medicine. But Abner Stiles,--yo