Slowly he passed, for he stopped to pick

The stones from the road with his old crook stick.

Rolled them left and rolled them right

From early morning till late at night.

And to wondering folk who paused to ask

The reasons that prompted this self-set task

He said, with a smile for their doubting gaze,

“I’m simply helpin’ ye mend your ways!”

It was August again. The flies buzzed lazily in the late afternoon hush, and the knife-nicked bench in the shade cast by Asa Brickett’s store had its accustomed row of old men, who buzzed in conversation as lazily as the flies.

“This has been about the tejousest summer I ever put through,” complained Uncle Lysimachus Buck, after a yawn. “Ev’rything seems to be deader’n the latch on a bulkhead door.”

“Mebbe it’s because Hime Look has settled up country on the Snell farm,” observed Marriner Amazeen with a bit of malice.

“Reports is that he’s givin’ ’em a little flavour of circus right along in that section,” said Dow Babb.

“Feller from that way was tellin’ me that Hime has been doin’ a job of breakin’ up with that el’phunt hitched to the plow. Hime allowed as how P. T. Barnum tells in his book that he used an el’phunt to plow with, and he wa’n’t goin’ to let no P. T.‘s git ahead of him. Ev’ry hoss that come along past stuck up ears and tail and tried to climb a tree and pull the tree up after. Feller said that one of the neighbours went to Hime fin’ly and said that he’d been readin’ in some tormented book erruther that in old days the Romans, or some of them old sirs, whoever they be, used to sacrifice animiles when there was any good luck had come to ’em and they wanted to celebrate account of it. Neighbour hinted that marryin’ Abby Snell was good enough luck for any man to brag of, and wanted to know why Hime didn’t offer Imogene up as a sacrifice. Told Hime the neighbours would git up a bee, if he did, and club in with him mighty enthusiastic.”

Babb unlocked his legs and chuckled.

“Hime spoke up and told the neighbour as how ’twas Imogene that had made the match ’tween him and Abby, and that if it come to a choice of gittin’ along without the el’phunt or a cook stove Abby’d let the cook stove go ev’ry time. Didn’t get much satisfaction out of Hime, now I tell ye!”

“I donno of any one that ever did,” said Marriner Amazeen.

“Cap Nymp’ Bodfish licked him once, time o’ the May gale, there,” stated Uncle Buck. “Cap Nymps told me he did.”

“Say, do you s’pose if he’d ever licked Hime Look he’d a-hid off in the woods all next day and then sold the Effort for a song and scooted to Hackenny, for all we know of him here?” demanded Amazeen. “No, s’r, there was no one ever done Hime Look in this world, except his own brother in town meetin’, and then t’was Look eat Look.”

“Curi’s how things has all come around the last year,” mused Lysimachus. “The Squire married to Sylvene and settled in the Willard house and the old Judge actin’ as proud of him as——”

Brickett interrupted here, coming from the inside of the store, where he had been perusing his daily paper.

“Why shouldn’t he be proud of him?” he demanded, his thumb on an item, his glasses on the end of his nose. “You listen here a minute.”

He began to read in a sing-song manner:

“A well-founded rumour from the State House is to the effect that the Governor has tendered the vacant Supreme Court judgeship to the Hon. Phineas Look, of Palermo. Mr. Look’s legal qualifications are too well known in this State to need comment. It is understood that he is in no sense an active candidate, and the honour has been tendered by the Governor to the Palermo man by the Executive’s initiative, the Governor following his frequently expressed intention of letting certain appointments within his gift seek the man. A Supreme Court judgeship is certainly not an office to be hawked among politicians, and such an appointment will be a credit to the State and the Bar. Mr. Look is——”

Brickett ran his eye down the column.

“There’s pretty nigh a whole colume here about him,” he said. “But there ain’t any need of readin’ it. It’s matters we’re all knowin’ to about him. Papers was lookin’ for somethin’ to fill up with, I persume.”

He flopped the sheet.

“What I wanted in pertickler to call your attention to,” he went on, “was something reel interestin’. It says here that a man has shot himself in a New York lodging-house, and from marks on his clothes and his papers it is supposed that he is King Bradish, who was at one time well known in certain sportin’ quarters. That must be our King Bradish, don’t you s’pose so?”

“Prob’ly,” said Uncle Buck without great interest. “And I’m glad he done it before he’d skun the last cent out of his poor old mother. I guess she ain’t got much left, as it is.”

“Well, signs and wonders never cease,” sighed Marriner Amazeen, relighting his pipe; “as I said when I witnessed Sum Badger’s new will t’other day,” he continued between puffs.

“Haskell’s girl gits it, does she?” asked Babb.

“Yas! Sence ’Caje Dunham whirled ’round and showed some signs of bein’ human, Sum found that he was in a class by himself as the meanest man in town, and he got jealous of ’Caje.”

“It won’t hurt this place none if some of the rest of ’em runs races of the same sort,” said Buck.

The click of the key in the lock above their heads startled them.

Squire Phin was coming down the stairs, shoving the key of his office into his trousers.

“We’ve jest been list’nin’ to some news about you, Squire,” called one of the group on the bench.

Squire Phin came around the corner of the stairway, put his hands behind his back and smiled at them.

“What now, neighbours?” he inquired.

“Says here in Ase’s paper that you’re goin’ to be a judge,” replied Buck.

“Well, that is news,” said the Squire, and yet with a quizzical cock to his eyebrows that indicated that he was in no measure surprised.

“Go ’long with you! You knowed it all the time!” snorted Buck.

“I always believe in giving my old neighbours all the news I can when they want it,” the lawyer said humorously, “for news has been scarce in town lately. I’m going to give you something straight now. You will hear this before the newspapers do: I have written to the Governor declining that honour with grateful thanks.”

“Won’t be a judge?” queried Amazeen with astonishment,

“I’d rather be Phin Look, lawyer,” said the Squire, with a queer little glint in his eyes.

“I’ll bet you ten dollars I know why,” snapped Uncle Buck, with the frankness of an old friend. “A man that knows was telling me that all you have to do is set up there in your office and rake in money hand over fist, sellin’ law to the big corporations. And a Supreme Court judge only gits five thousand a year.”

His gimlet eye bored the Squire, and a question that his curiosity had prompted for a long time popped out of his mouth.

“A man what ought to know told me that you was clearin’ fifteen thousand dollars a year out of law. Now, Squire, I stump you to say that he lied. Did he, or didn’t he?”

The lawyer so thoroughly appreciated the character of Uncle Buck that this attack was flavoured for him with delicious humour. He came close to the old man and put his hands on his hips as he straddled before him.

“I’m goin’ to tell you the honest truth, Uncle Lys,” he said.

The inquisitor pulled himself forward.

“If a man is a Supreme Court judge in this State he must be away from home almost three-quarters of his time. Now the straight facts of the case are——”

He whirled on his heel and pointed up the street. They all could see the gate of the Willard place. A woman was standing there waiting, and against her pretty white gown was silhouetted the figure of a shaggy dog.

“Now, the straight facts are, Uncle Lys, my wife wants me home every night to help water the garden. I’ve coaxed and teased, but she won’t let me be a judge.”

A pucker of mirth came around his lips.

“It’s awful to be bossed around that way by a woman, Uncle Lys.”

“Oh, you darnation fool!” snorted the old man, making a swipe at the lawyer with his cane.

Squire Phin dodged in mock terror and went away laughing.

Uncle Aquarius Wharff had come up and taken his favourite position on the platform to study the evening skies.

“How is it looking to-night?” asked the lawyer, kindly humouring the old man’s vagary.

“Clouds is master fine things with the sun-fire behind ’em, ain’t they, Squire?” returned Uncle Wharff. “Look at ’em, all splattered with colours that the cherubim has been busy all day a-mixin’ so’s to have ‘em ready for the sunset time. Blazin’ with glory, that’s what they be! Seems as if you could jump off’n Witch-Run Hill straight into the hereafter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that p’raps the angels do open the gates once in a while at sunset time jest to see if they are well ’iled ag’inst the Gre’t Day of the Hereafter. It’s a spankin’ fine prospect out there now, Squire. You take that mixtur’ of gold and roses and all them colours that make your heart feel swelly inside, and it means settled weather for a long time to come, Squire, for a long time to come!”

The lawyer patted the shoulder of the old man’s sun-faded coat.

“God bless you for a prophet, Uncle Aquarius,” he said gently.

Then he stepped off the platform and started up the street, waving a greeting to the white figure at the gate. She came to meet him, with shining eyes, and they went in hand in hand.

THE END