hurry about the interest right now--right now," said
Jethro. "M-may be along the third week in March--may be--c-can t tell."

And Jethro clucked to his horse, and drove away. Eben Williams went back
into his house and sat down with his head in his hands. In about two
hours, when his wife called him to fetch water, he set down the pail on
the snow and stared across the next ridge at the eastern horizon,
whitening after the sunset.

The third week in March was the week after town meeting!

"M-may be--c-can't tell," repeated Eben to himself, unconsciously
imitating Jethro's stutter. "Godfrey, I'll hev to git that ticket
straight from Amos."

Yes, we may have our suspicions. But how can we get a bill on this
evidence? There are some thirty other individuals in Coniston whose
mortgages Jethro holds, from a horse to a house and farm. It is not
likely that they will tell Beacon Hatch, or us; that they are going to
town meeting and vote for that fatherless ticket because Jethro Bass
wishes them to do so. And Jethro has never said that he wishes them to.
If so, where are your witnesses? Have we not come back to our
starting-point, even as Moses Hatch drove around in a circle.. And we
have the advantage over Moses, for we suspect somebody, and he did not
know whom to suspect. Certainly not Jethro Bass, the man that lived under
his nose and never said anything--and had no right to. Jethro Bass had
never taken any active part in politics, though some folks had heard, in
his rounds on business, that he had discussed them, and had spread the
news of the infamous ticket without a parent. So much was spoken of at
the meeting over which Priest Ware prayed. It was even declared that,
being a Democrat, Jethro might have influenced some of those under
obligations to him. Sam Price was at last fixed upon as the malefactor,
though people agreed that they had not given him credit for so much
sense, and Jacksonian principles became as much abhorred by the orthodox
as the spotted fever.

We can call a host of other witnesses if we like, among them cranky,
happy-go-lucky Fletcher Bartlett, who has led forlorn hopes in former
years. Court proceedings make tiresome reading, and if those who have
been over ours have not arrived at some notion of the simple and innocent
method of the new Era of politics note dawning--they never will. Nothing
proved. But here is part of the ticket which nobody started:--

For

SENIOR SELECTMAN, FLET