at about Elihu?" I asked.

"Well, he can't seem to get along, somehow. He used to belong to the
Baptist Church, but he got out o' that. Then he went to a church up in
Graylock, but he had a fallin' out up there. Then he went to Northfield
and Eustis. He's been all around, even over on Long Island. He goes to
church up at Amherst now, I believe."

"What seems to be the trouble?"

"Oh, he's just strong-headed, I guess." He paused, and ideas lagged
until finally I observed:

"It's a very interesting store he keeps."

"It's just as Billy Drumgold told him once: 'Burridge,' he says, 'you've
got everything in this store that belongs to a full-rigged ship 'cept
one thing.' 'What's that?' Burridge asks. 'A second-hand pulpit.' 'Got
that too,' he answered, and takes him upstairs, and there he had one
sure enough."

"Well," I said, "what was he doing with it?"

"Danged if I know. He had it all right. Has it yet, so they say."

Days passed and as the summer waned the evidences of a peculiar life
accumulated. Noank, apparently, was at outs with Burridge on the subject
of religion, and he with it. There were instances of genuine hard
feeling against him.

Writing a letter in the Postoffice one day I ventured to take up this
matter with the postmaster.

"You know Mr. Burridge, don't you--the grocer?"

"Well, I should guess I did," he replied with a flare.

"Anything wrong with him?"

"Oh, about everything that's just plain cussed--the most wrangling man
alive. I never saw such a man. He don't get his mail here no more
because he's mad at me, I guess. Took it away because I had Mr. Palmer's
help in my fight, I suppose. Wrote me that I should send all his mail up
to Mystic, and he goes there three or four miles out of his way every
day, just to spite me. It's against the law. I hadn't ought to be doing
it, re-addressing his envelopes three or four times a day, but I do do
it. He's a strong-headed man, that's the trouble with Elihu."

I had no time to follow this up then, but a little later, sitting in the
shop of the principal sailboat maker, which was situated in the quiet
little lane which follows the line of the village, I was one day
surprised by the sudden warm feeling which the name of Elihu generated.
Something had brought up the subject of religion, and I said that
Burridge seemed rather religious.

"Yes," said the sailboat maker quickly, "he's religious, all right, only
he reads the Bible for others, not for