Hewett’s general store, with its official annex, the post-office, occupied a prominent place in the social as well as the economic system of Barford. Not even the aisles, sheds, and steps of the Presbyterian church afforded so convenient and popular an arena for the interchange of items of general interest as did “Hewett’s.” There appeared to be something suggestively cheerful and enlivening in the sagging piles of fruit and vegetables, something friendly and hospitable in the boxes, barrels, and kegs open to public inspection and exploring fingers. Even the curious and all-pervasive odor compounded of prunes, pickles, yellow soap, and tobacco, with an occasional aromatic whiff of freshly ground coffee, seemed to lend itself to a pleasantly open frame of mind, conducive to an unreserved expression of opinion concerning the church, the state, and the social whirl, as evidenced in the varying currents and eddies of village life.

As in other similar emporiums devoted to the display and sale of such commodities as were in general demand “the store cat” might be seen guarding inconspicuous rat-holes, or curled up in peaceful slumber in the cracker barrel, or in close proximity to the whity-brown loaves of bread destined for private consumption and handled with easy familiarity and a total lack of ceremonial cleanliness by the driver of the baker’s cart, the Hewetts, father and son, and by such tentative customers as elected to test the freshness of the product with doubtful thumb and finger.

It was at Hewett’s, as might have been expected, that the singular event of the auction at the Preston farm had been discussed in all its different aspects. The amount of the mortgage held by Stephen Jarvis, the various expedients resorted to by the daughter of Donald Preston, and the events leading up to her desperate and successful coup had all been reviewed circumstantially and in order. The continued presence of David Whitcomb in the community furnished a welcome variation to the subject; and inasmuch as David was found not averse to talking of himself, there was little mystery about his return to Barford and its object.

Opinions as to the personal appearance, probable resources, and moral character of the ex-schoolmaster were found to be as varied as the new and somewhat showy raiment in which he appeared from day to day.

“Thinks he’s too good to walk now ’t he’s got them shiny pointed shoes,” observed Hank Smith, whose footgear was of the square-toed variety, presumably inherited from a deceased relative. “I seen him drivin’ a rig out t’ Preston’s to-day.”

“Yas,” corroborated the local liveryman. “He’s took it b’ the week. Says he’s thinkin’ of buyin’ a good horse.”

“Huh! you don’t say,” drawled a farmer from the hills, who had dropped in for his week’s supply of groceries and his mail. “I s’pose he done pretty well out west? Mebbe I c’d sell him that bay mare o’ mine.”

“He spen’s lots of money; I don’t know how much he’s got,” was the unchallenged opinion put forth by another.

There followed a general oscillation of heads about the empty stove, a round-bellied affair, capable of fierce white heats in the winter time, but abandoned to rust in summer and habitually diffusing a clammy scent of chimney soot and damp ashes.

“I guess the’ don’t anybody know ’s t’ that; I heard him speak o’ minin’ prop’ties kind o’ careless like. He sure does carry a big wad.”

“The table board over t’ the Eagle’s called pretty fair; but ’tain’t good enough fer Whitcomb. He pays extry fer dinner at night.”

“Jus’ so; an’ Sutton’s cook left after he’d been thar a couple o’ weeks. She said she wa’n’t a-goin’ t’ put up with Whitcomb.”

“Wall, I’ll give that young feller about four months t’ run through what he’s got,” the elder Hewett observed, in the intervals of passing various purchases of coffee through his grinder. “I’ll bet I c’d carry all the minin’ prop’ty he owns in m’ vest pocket, an’ hev room fer m’ han’kerchief.”

“‘Twon’t take him that long if he keeps on as he’s goin’ now. I heerd”—and the speaker leaned forward, bringing the legs of his chair to the floor with a thump—“‘at he’s pretty fast; drinks consid’ble an’ plays cards fer money. Wonder if she knows?”

“Barb’ry’d ought t’ look out, if he’s that kind,” observed another, wagging his pendulous chin-whiskers. “Her pa’d ought t’ be a serious warnin’ t’ her.”

“Shaw! ’tain’t so,” put in a third. “Dave’s all right. He ain’t so slow’s to be actually mossy; but he’s all right. I’ll bet you——”

What the speaker was about to wager on his charitable opinion was lost to the public as Peg Morrison stubbed noisily up the steps, and entered the door, swung hospitably wide to dust, flies, and the travelling public.

“Hello, Peg; how’s your folks?” drawled Al Hewett, presenting his round, solemn face at the square aperture devoted to the delivery of mail. “Le’ me see; here’s a paper fer you, an’ a circ’lar,—one o’ them phosphate ads you’ve been gettin’ lately. An’ a letter fer Miss Barb’ra. Do you want I should forward it—eh?”

“Forward it—no; give it t’ me.”

Mr. Morrison’s voice held an exasperated note discouraging to those in quest of information.

“Then she ain’t left yet?” queried an individual, comfortably seated over the cool recesses of the pickle barrel. “Somebody was sayin’——”

“No, sir,” said Peg, facing about and addressing the inquiring circle of eyes as one man. “No, sir; Miss Barb’ry ain’t gone, an’ as fer ’s I know, she’ll be home, anyhow, till after the apples is picked.”

Mr. Morrison would have warmly disclaimed any intention of discussing his mistress’s business with outsiders; but he felt it incumbent upon himself, as the surviving feudal representative, as it were, of the Preston family, to correct erroneous public opinion.

“Goin’ t’ gether a pretty fair crop this year, I see,” observed the village veterinary, who combined the business of livery and sale stable with his more learned profession.

“You bet,” chuckled Peg. “W’y, them apples ’ll beat anythin’ in the county. We’re goin’ t’ exhibit at th’ fair, same ’s we ust to.”

“Apples is goin’ t’ be so cheap y’ can’t git nothin’ fer ’em,” said a farmer pessimistically. “Ef they don’t all drop off the trees come September, it’s bein’ s’ dry.”

“Our apples won’t drop, I’ll bet you,” bragged Peg. “We’ve kep’ th’ ground in our orchards ploughed an’ cultivated all summer. Miss Barb’ry, she kind o’ got that notion las’ spring f’om readin’ some gov’ment report, an’ jus’ to humor her I done ’s she said.”

“‘Tain’t no way to do,” put in another. “The grass prevents th’ roots f’om heavin’; keeps ’em cool in summer an’ warm in winter. Y’ don’t ketch me payin’ any ’tention to them blamed gov’ment reports. Now the Republicans is in, y’ can’t b’lieve a word ’at comes f’om Washin’ton.”

No one being immediately minded to disprove this sweeping statement, there was brief silence for a space. Then a new topic was introduced.

“Say, Peleg, when’s the weddin’ comin’ off to your place?”

“The weddin’? what weddin’?” parried Peg cautiously. “I ain’t heerd o’ no weddin’.”

“You hain’t—heh? Well, you’re kind o’ behind the times.”

“I heerd the’ was to be two weddin’s out your way come fall,” cackled the horse doctor. “How ’bout Marthy an’ th’ onions?”

Peg turned an angrily bewildered face upon the speaker.

“Th’ onions,” he said, “is O. K.; but I dunno what you’re drivin’ at.”

“Well, I’ll tell ye; Marthy Cottle told Elviry Scott, an’ she tol’ my wife’s sister that you was payin’ her marked attention. She said she hadn’t made up her mind whether t’ marry ye or not. But she thought mebbe she might, ef the onion crop turned out all right. I sez t’ m’ wife——”

A roar of laughter drowned the end of the sentence and Peg’s indignant denial.

“I ain’t done no more,” he averred, “than t’ wipe m’ feet careful on th’ door-mat on the kitchen-stoop when the’s mud on the groun’. An’ I only done that t’ keep th’ peace.”

“Wall, Peleg, ef you c’n make out t’ keep th’ peace with Marthy Cottle, I reckon you’re the man fer Marthy,” was the opinion of the senior Hewett, delivered over the top of a tall bag of sugar which he was weighing.

A chorus of loud laughter greeted this sally; when it had died away a late comer announced impersonally that the county fair was going to be the finest in years.

“That’s so,” confirmed a visitor from the county seat, distant some five miles. “The’ll be horses f’om all over the state, ’n a b’lloon ascension, b’sides the usual features.”

“Any races?” inquired the farmer from the upper hill road. “‘Cause I’ve got a colt, Black Hawk blood, ’t c’n run like a streak o’ greased lightnin’.”

“Races? Well, natu’ally. The’ll be races every day after the fust, an’ on Sat’day, the closin’ day, the stakes ’ll be a hunderd dollars fer two-year-olds, an’ up fer hosses o’ all ages. I wouldn’t miss it fer more’n I gen’ally carry in loose change. The’ll be some tall bettin’, I persoom.”

“They say that young Whitcomb feller’s quite a sport when ’t comes t’ puttin’ money on any ol’ thing,” drawled young Hewett, who had laid aside his official gravity as he emerged from behind the post-office.

Mr. Morrison looked troubled.

“I guess I’ll be goin’ ’long,” he said, and cast a defiant look around the circle. “Ef I was you,” he said, “I’d keep my mouth shet ’bout things I didn’t know anythin’ ’bout.”

No one answered; but there was a general laugh as his heavy boots were heard to strike the sidewalk.

“Poor old Peleg!” said one. “Them Prestons has kep’ him pretty busy cookin’ up excuses. An’ ef she marries Whitcomb I guess Peleg ’ll be up against it a while longer.”

“‘Twon’t be any time b’fore Jarvis gits another mortgage; mebbe he’ll fetch it this time. ’Tain’t often the ’onor’ble gent gits left. I hed t’ laugh when I heerd she’d paid him off.”

“The’s somethin’ mighty queer ’bout that business, anyhow. Who d’ye suppose anted up with the money?”

“Some fool, like ’s not. A fool an’ his money’s soon parted. Now like’s not it was Dave Whitcomb. Mebbe he——”

“Get out, man! What’d be the use o’ that, if he’s goin’ t’ marry her?”

“He wa’n’t engaged to her when he fust come back; mebbe he thought——”

“Thought nothin’! Dave wouldn’t pass over no four thousand dollars b’fore he knew she’d have him, would he? He’d be a bigger fool ’n he looks to do that.”

“Say, Hank,” drawled young Hewett, “which ’d you druther be, a bigger fool ’n you look? or look a bigger fool ’n you be?”

“I dunno,” said Hank, thoughtfully expectorating in the general direction of the rusty stove. “Guess on the hull, I’d ruther look a bigger fool ’n I be, b’cause——”

“That’s impossible!” quoth the genial Al, with a snigger of amusement.

“Pooh! that’s a dried-up chestnut, Hank,” interposed the liveryman, “f’om five years b’fore last; don’t you let Al get a rise out o’ you that easy. He’d ’a’ said the same thing whichever way you’d answered.”

“Darn!” vociferated Hank. Then he joined in the general laugh.

In the silence that followed the subsidence of mirth a small, spare individual, wearing a gray linen duster, buttoned to the throat, and carrying a suit-case and tightly strapped umbrella, entered the store. He gazed inquiringly at the assembled circle, his eyes wrinkling pleasantly at the corners.

“I just blew in,” he observed to nobody in particular, “and I’m going to hang out for a few days at the best hotel in town.”

“The’ ain’t but one,” volunteered the voluble Smith, stealthily moving his chair that he might get a look at the stranger’s feet. They were neatly covered with tan Oxfords, he satisfied himself; but the toes were not pointed.

“Where’ll I find it?” asked the stranger. “I’m an inspector from the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company,” he added, correctly interpreting the suspicious glances levelled at him and his sparse belongings. “Expect to be in town two or three days, looking over our risks and correcting a map of the town. I do a little life insurance business on the side.”

“Takin’ on any new risks in buildin’s?” inquired the man on the pickle barrel.

“W’y, yes; I ain’t a regular soliciting agent for the Phoenix; but I’ll be mighty glad to write any persons desiring insurance,” replied the stranger. “My name,” he added pleasantly, “is Todd, Albert Todd, at your service, gentlemen.”

Mr. Todd bowed and smiled expansively.

“Wall, ye want t’ cast yer eye over Hiram Plumb’s prop’ty, fust thing you do,” advised the liveryman, with a facetious grimace toward the individual on the pickle barrel. “It’s in a fierce condition.”

The gentleman in question slowly descended from his perch, thoughtfully caressing the seat of his trousers, as he replied in kind.

“Y’ don’t hev to worry none ’bout me, Mister Todd—if that’s your name—I don’t insure in the Phoenix; but Bud Hawley, him that keeps the liv’ry-stable, is a teetotally bad risk. He’s been takin’ au-to-mo-beels t’ board lately, an’ they sure do kick up a powerful smell o’ gasolene.”

“I’ve got a permit,” hastily interposed Mr. Hawley. “I c’n show it to you.”

The stranger waved his hand deprecatingly.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said gently. “I have nothing to do with that class of business. But if Mr. Hawley has a good horse and buggy to hire, I’ll be glad to talk business. How about it, Mr. Hawley?”

Mr. Hawley favored the stranger with a comprehensive stare.

“Guess I got a rig ’at ’ud suit,” he admitted. “Fi’ dollars a day an’ up, ’cordin’ t’ the sort o’ rig you’re lookin’ for.”

“I want,” said Mr. Todd, “a good smart horse; one that can cover considerable territory in a day, and a buggy; nothing fancy, you know; but neat and comfortable.”

“All right,” said Mr. Hawley slowly. “I’m goin’ along t’ my place now; ’tain’t fur from the Eagle.”

“Many folks stopping at the hotel?” inquired Mr. Todd briskly, as the two men walked along the village street under the heavy noonday shade of the big maples.

“Not s’ many,” replied the liveryman non-committally.

He scowled as a smart, yellow-wheeled trap whizzed past.

“I dunno what sort of a driver you be,” he said. “Most anybody wants t’ git over the ground these days; but the’s some folks ’at thinks they c’n drive a horse like it was an automobeel. That’s one o’ my rigs an’ one o’ my best horses,—or was till that chap took t’ drivin’ it.”

Mr. Todd stretched his long neck after the yellow-wheeled trap, which had stopped in front of the Barford Eagle a little further up the street.

“You don’t say!” he observed mildly. “Kind of a young feller, too. They say a merciful man is merciful to his beast.”

“Dave Whitcomb must be a hard case, ’cordin’ to that,” was Mr. Hawley’s opinion. “Y’ seen him get out an’ go in; did you? Wall, that young chap used t’ teach school here. Fact; he was principal of our union school, an’ considered a smart enough chap, though quiet; didn’t cut much of a swathe, even with the young folks. But all of a sudden he up an’ went west! an’ we heard after a spell he was dead. But he turned up a while ago, live as ever, an’ consid’able changed. He’s quite a heavy swell now; they say he owns a mine, or suthin’, out west. He’s stayin’ t’ the Eagle; ’n’ say, if you’re one of the sort ’at likes t’ put on style ’n’ eat your dinner at night mebbe you c’d chum in with Dave.”

“What’s the young man’s line of business?” asked Mr. Todd. “I’d like to interest him in a little proposition——”

“Business?” echoed Mr. Hawley, and he chuckled as he drove his hands a little deeper into his trousers pockets. “Dave’s principal business around these parts is courtin’, I sh’d say. I guess he don’t do much else these days. Girl out in the country; got a big apple farm. If you git acquainted with Dave he’ll tell you all about it.”

To make the acquaintance of the ex-schoolmaster appeared to be exactly what the energetic Mr. Todd was seeking. He put up at the Eagle, where he made a point of asking for a six o’clock dinner.

“I am told,” he said to Sutton, the proprietor, “that this is one of the few properly managed hotels in this part of the country, with evening dinners, breakfasts À la carte, and so forth!”

Sutton silently shook his heavy body, his wide mouth turning up at the comers, an exercise which passed with him as a laugh.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “we’re stylish an’ up t’ date all right, when it comes t’ ’leven o’clock breakfasts an’ six o’clock dinners. We’ve kind of changed our day around here t’ ’commodate our patrons. We calc’late t’ please.”

And so it came about that young Whitcomb sat down to dinner that night with Mr. Albert Todd. The latter individual was quite the gentleman in his manners at table, David observed. Little by little the two fell into friendly conversation, and David, at first irritable and silent, passed all at once into his alternating mood, when he desired nothing so much as to talk about himself. He had found few he cared to talk to in Barford, except Barbara, and there were things one could not mention to a woman.

Not once did the tactful Mr. Todd allude to the subject of life insurance, and he appeared wonderfully interested in David’s account of his life in the West; of his failures, few and far between, and of his successes, social and otherwise which, according to David, had been many and remarkable. Mr. Todd was a man of the world, that much was clear, with no foolish or fanatical prejudices. After dinner the two in a state of post-prandial amity strolled across to the barroom, where they partook of various cooling drinks, compounded, under David’s direction, by the alert young person behind the bar. And when later they strolled out to the piazza and David produced cigarettes, they had fallen into relations of such exceeding friendliness that David reopened the conversation in a more intimate tone than he had yet taken.

“This is the most confoundedly stupid hole a man ever dropped into,” he observed through the fragrant smoke wreaths.

“It looks kind of peaceful and soothing,” agreed Mr. Todd, with a chuckle; “I guess I can stand it for a few days, though.”

He looked away up the dusty street where an occasional pedestrian enlivened the solitude. “Thinking of settling here?” he asked.

David scowled.

“Yes,” he said. “Out in the country a mile or so.”

“Then you’ll have hopes of striking the metropolis here occasionally?” queried Mr. Todd facetiously. “I wouldn’t want to get too far away.”

David’s eyes were still fixed and frowning.

“What do you think of a man of my experience settling down in a place like this to raise apples?” he asked. “Sometimes I think I’m several kinds of a fool for doing it.”

Mr. Todd spat thoughtfully over the rail.

“That depends,” he said tentatively, but with a keen look at the other.

David flicked the ash off his cigarette, then flung it impatiently away and lighted a fresh one.

“Yes, of course,” he said; “but take it anyway you like, is the game worth the candle? Once I’m tied up here, I suppose I’ll have to stand by the rest of my life. Do I want to do it? Would you want to do it? Honest now.”

The small spare gentleman who had introduced himself to Barford society under the name of Albert Todd smiled thoughtfully.

“Well, it strikes me as a bit slow for my taste. What do you say to a game of cards to pass away the time?”

David shook his head.

“I don’t take much to cards,” he said. “The other chap generally wins, and I like to be on the winning side.”

He tramped up and down the piazza a few times; impatiently kicking at the railings as he paused to turn.

“There’s a man in this town I’ve got to see on rather disagreeable business,” he said at last. “I’ve been putting it off for several days; but I believe I’ll do it now. So long. See you in the morning.”

Left to himself Mr. Todd elevated his feet to the railing, as if to indulge in a prolonged period of post-prandial meditation. In the gathering twilight he watched David’s muscular figure swinging along the street. He was walking like a man with a purpose. After a minute or two of keen-eyed watchfulness Mr. Todd quietly arose, clapped his hat on his head, and strolled toward the steps.

“Goin’ out t’ take in the town?” inquired a voice from the rear.

The insurance man glanced at the slim youth in the rather untidy white apron who stood in the doorway.

“W’y, yes,” he replied, very pleasantly indeed. “I thought I might as well.”

“I’d advise you not to have much to do with that fellow you was talkin’ to,” pursued the youth sulkily. “He’s one of our customers, but I don’t care. Talk ’bout cards; he cleaned me out of a month’s wages one night last week; then laughed at me for bein’ mad. I ain’t got no use fer him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Mr. Todd said pacifically. “He seems like a nice sort. Nothing really vicious, or——”

“He’s a durned, good-fer-nothin’ blowhard; that’s what he is,” said the bartender rancorously. “An’ that’s what I tell Jennie. But she—— I’d like t’ punch his head; that’s all!”

“Who’s Jennie?”

“She waited on your table t’ supper. She’s the prettiest girl in this town.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Todd understandingly.

“She’s prettier ’n that Preston girl ever thought of bein’—that’s his girl. He’s engaged t’ her. But some folks want the earth.”

“That’s so,” observed Mr. Todd smilingly. “And sometimes,” he added, with a wink, “they get it, too!”

This speech appeared to irritate the youth exceedingly. “Huh!” he exploded violently. “Well, I’d like to punch his head; that’s all.”