m
gettin' work, or--something--for you folks to be friends with me."

"I think such things take care of themselves," said Susan, quietly. "If
a chip won't float, let it sink."

"Good-night," said Eph, and he walked off, and went home to his echoing
house.

After that, his visits to Joshua's became less frequent.

* * * * *

It was a bright day in March--one of those which almost redeem the
reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence,
looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the
marshes. He knew that all the other men had gone to the town-meeting,
where he had had no heart to intrude himself--that free democratic
parliament where he had often gone with his father in childhood; where
the boys, rejoicing in a general assembly of their own, had played ball
outside, while the men debated gravely within. He recalled the time when
he himself had so proudly given his first vote for President, and how
his father had introduced him then to friends from distant parts of the
town. He remembered how he had heard his father speak there, and how
respectfully everybody had listened to him. That was in the long ago,
when they had lived at the great farm. And then came the thought of the
mortgage, and of Eliphalet's foreclosure, and--

"Hallo, Eph!"

It was one of the men from whom he took fish--a plain-spoken, sincere
little man.

"Why wa'n't you down to town-meet'n'?"

"I was busy," said Eph.

"How'd ye like the news?"

"What news?"

There was never any good news for him now.

"Hain't heard who's selected town-clerk?"

"No."

Had they elected Eliphalet, and so expressed their settled distrust of
him, and sympathy for the man whom he had injured?

"Who's elected?" he asked, harshly.

"You be!" said the man; "went in flyin', all hands clappin' and stompin'
their feet!"

An hour later the doctor drove up, stopped, and walked toward the
kitchen door. As he passed the window, he looked in.

Eph was lying on his face, upon the settle, as he had first seen him
there, his arms beneath his head.

"I will not disturb him now," said the doctor.

* * * * *

One breezy afternoon, in the following summer, Captain Seth laid aside
his easy every-day clothes, and transformed himself into a stiff
broadcloth image, with a small silk hat and creaking boots. So attired,
he set out in a high open buggy, with his wife