Well, sir, even the Major's guns was spiked for a minute. I cal'late that, for once, he'd forgot all about his dietizin' and only remembered his appetite. He gurgled and choked and glared. Afore he could get his artillery ready for a broadside I walked off and left him. He'd riled me up a little and I saw a chance to rile him back.

I went around to the back part of the Crowell house and tried the kitchen door. 'Twas locked, for a wonder, but the window side of it wasn't. I pushed up the sash and reached in fur enough to unhook the door. Then I went into the house and begun to overhaul the supplies in the galley. I found flour and sugar and salt and pepper and coffee and butter and canned milk and salt pork—about everything I wanted. Jonathan and I was friendly enough so's I knew he wouldn't care what I used so long as I paid for it. If he had I'd have taken the risk, just then.

The wood-box was full and I got a fire goin' in the cookstove, and put on a couple of kettles of water to heat. Then I went out to the shed and located a clam hoe and a bucket. There's clams a-plenty 'most anywheres along that beach and the tide was out fur enough for me to get a bucket-full of small ones in no time. I fetched 'em up to the house and set down on the back step to open 'em.

The Major and Shelton was watchin' me all this time and they looked interested—that is, the Congressman did, and Clark was doin' his best not to. Pretty soon Shelton walks over and asks a question. "What are you doin' with those things, Cap'n Snow?" says he, referrin' to the clams.

"Oh," says I, cheerful, "I'm figgerin' on makin' a chowder, if nothin' busts."

"A chowder," he says, sort of eager. "A clam chowder? Can you?"

"I can. That is, I have made a good many and I cal'late to make this one, unless I'm struck with paralysis."

"A clam chowder!" he says again, sort of eager but reverent. "By George! that's good—er—for you, I mean."

"I hope 'twill be good for you, too," says I. "I'm sorry that Major Clark's dyspepsy's such that 'twon't be good for him, but that's his misfortune, not my fault."

Shelton looked sort of queer and went away to jine his chum. The two of 'em did consider'ble talkin' and the Major appeared to be deliverin' a sermon, at least I heard a good many orthodox words in the course of it. I finished my clam openin', went in and got my cookin' started. The flour and the butter made me think that some hot spider-bread would go good with the chowder and I started to mix a batch. Then I got another idea.

'Twas too late for huckleberries and such, but out back of the shed, beyond the pines, was a little swampy place. I took a tin pail, went out there and filled the pail with early wild cranberries in five minutes. As I was comin' back I noticed an onion patch in the garden. A chowder without onions is like a camp-meetin' Sunday without your best girl—pretty flat and impersonal. Most of those left in the patch had gone to seed, but I got a half dozen.

After a short spell that kitchen begun to get fragrant and folksy, as you might say. The coffee was b'ilin', the chowder was about ready, there was a pan of red-hot spider-bread on the back of the stove and a cranberry shortcake—'twould have been better with cream, but to skim condensed milk is more exercise than profit—in the oven. I'd opened all the windows and the door, so the smell drifted out and livened up the surroundin' scenery. Clark and Shelton were settin' on a sand hummock a little ways off and I could see 'em wrinklin' their noses.

When the table was set and everything was ready I put my head out of the window and hollered:

"Dinner!" I sung out.

There wa'n't any answer. The pair on the hummock stirred and acted uneasy, but they didn't move. I ladled out some of the chowder and the perfume of it got more pervadin' and extensive. Then I rattled the dishes and tried again.

"Dinner!" I hollered. "Come on; chowder's gettin' cold."

Still they didn't move and I begun to think my fun had been all for myself. I was disappointed, but I set down to the table and commenced to eat. Then I heard a noise. The pair of 'em had drifted over to the doorway and was lookin' in.

"Hello!" says I, blowin' a spoonful of chowder to cool it. "Am I givin' a good imitation of a hungry man? If I ain't, appearances are deceitful."

"Hog!" snarls Clark, with enthusiasm.

"Not at all," says I. "There's plenty of everything and Mr. Shelton's welcome. So would you be, Major, if there was anything aboard you could eat. I'm awful sorry about them prunes and nutmeats. I only wish Crowell had laid in a supply—I do so."

The Major's mouth was waterin' so he had to swallow afore he could answer. When he did I realized what he was at his best. Shelton didn't say a word, but the looks of him was enough.

"My, my!" says I, "I'm glad I made a whole kettleful of this stuff; I can use a grown man's share of it."

Shelton looked at Clark and Clark looked at him. Then the Major yelps at him like a sore pup.

"Go ahead!" he shouts. "Go ahead in! Don't stand starin' at me like a cannibal. Go in and eat, why don't you?"

You could see the Congressman was divided in his feelin's. He wanted dinner worse than the Old Harry wanted the backslidin' deacon, but he hated to desert his friend.

"You're sure—" he stammered. "It seems mean to leave you, but.... Sure you wouldn't mind? If it wasn't that you are on a diet and can't eat I shouldn't think of it, but—"

"Shut up!" The Major fairly whooped it to Jericho. "If you talk diet to me again I'll kill you. Go in and eat. Eat, you idiot! I'd just as soon watch two pigs as one. Go in!"

So Shelton came in and I had a plate of chowder waitin' for him. He grabbed up his spoon and didn't speak until he'd finished the whole of it. Then he fetched a long breath, passed the plate for more, and says he:

"By George, Cap'n, that is the best stuff I ever tasted. You're a wonderful cook."

"Much obliged," says I. "But you ain't competent to judge until after the third helpin'. And now you try a slab of that spider-bread and a cup of coffee. And don't forget to leave room for the shortcake because.... Well, I swan to man! Why, Major Clark, are you crazy?"

For, as sure as I'm settin' here, old Clark had come bustin' into that kitchen, yanked a chair up to that table, grabbed a plate and the ladle and was helpin' himself to chowder.

"Major!" says I.

"Why, Cobden!" says Shelton.

"Shut up!" roars the Major. "If either of you say a word I won't be responsible for the consequences."

We didn't say anything and neither did he. Judgin' by the silence 'twas a mighty solemn occasion. Everybody ate chowder and just thought, I guess.

"Pass me that bread," snaps Clark.

"But Cobden," says Shelton again.

"It's hot," says I, "and it's fried, and—"

"Give it to me! If you don't I shall know it's because you're too rip-slap stingy to part with it."

After that, there was nothin' to be done but the one thing. He got the bread and he ate it—not one slice, but two. And he drank coffee and ate a three-inch slab of shortcake. When the meal was over there wa'n't enough left to feed a healthy canary.

"Now," growls the Major, turnin' to Shelton, "have you a cigar in your pocket? If you have, hand it over."

The Congressman fairly gasped. "A cigar!" he sings out. "You—goin' to smoke? You?"

"Yes—me. I'm goin' to die anyway. This murderer here," p'intin' to me, "laid his plans to kill me and he's succeeded. But I'll die happy. Give me that cigar! If you had a drink about you I'd take that."

He bit the end off his cigar, lit it, and slammed out of that kitchen, puffin' like a soft-coal tug. Shelton shook his head at me and I shook mine back.

"Do you s'pose he will die?" he asked. "He's eaten enough to kill anybody. And with his stomach! And to smoke!"

"The dear land knows," says I. To tell you the truth I was a little conscience-struck and worried. My idea had been to play a joke on Clark—tantalize him by eatin' a square meal that he couldn't touch—and get even for some of the names he'd called me. But now I wa'n't sure that my fun wouldn't turn out serious. When a man with a lame digestion eats enough to satisfy an elephant nobody can be sure what'll come of it.

The Congressman and I washed the dishes and 'twas a pretty average sorrowful job. Only once, when I happened to glance at him and caught a queer look in his eyes, was the ceremony any more joyful than a funeral. Then the funny side of it struck me and I commenced to laugh. He joined in and the pair of us haw-hawed like loons. Then we was sorry for it.

Shelton went out when the dish-washin' was over. I cleaned up everything, left a note and some money on Jonathan's table and locked up the house. When I got outside there was a fair to middlin' breeze springin' up. Shelton was settin' on the hummock waitin' for me.

"Where—where's the Major?" I asked, pretty fearful.

"He's over there in the shade—asleep," he whispered.

"Asleep!" says I. "Sure he ain't dead?"

"Listen," says he.

I listened. If the Major was dead he was a mighty noisy remains.

He woke up, after an hour or so, and come trampin' over to where we was.

"Well," he snaps, "it's blowin' hard enough now, ain't it? Why don't you take us home?"

"How about the auto?" I asked.

The auto could stay where it was until the horses came to pull it out. As for him he wanted to be took home.

"But—but are you able to go?" asked Shelton, anxious.

What in the sulphur blazes did we mean by that? Course he was able to go! And had Shelton got another cigar in his clothes?

All of the sail home I was expectin' to see that military man keel over and begin his digestion torments. But he didn't keel. He smoked and talked and was better-natured than ever I'd seen him. He didn't mention his stomach once and you can be sure and sartin that I didn't. As we was comin' up to the moorin's in Ostable I'm blessed if he didn't begin to sing, a kind of a fool tune about "Down where the somethin'-or-other runs." Then I was scared, because I judged that his attack had started and delirium was settin' in.

Shelton shook hands with me at the landin'.

"You're all right, Cap'n Snow," he says. "That was the best meal I ever tasted and nobody but you could have conjured it up in the middle of a howlin' wilderness. If there's anything I can do for you at any time just let me know."

There was one thing he could do, of course, but I wouldn't be mean enough to mention it then. The Major and I had, generally speakin', fought fair, and I wouldn't take advantage of a delirious invalid. And just then up comes the invalid himself.

"See here, Snow," says he, pretty gruff; "I'll probably be dead afore mornin', but afore I die I want to tell you that I'm much obliged to you for bringin' us home. Yes, and—and, by the great and mighty, I'm obliged to you for that chowder and the rest of it! It'll be my death, but nothin' ever tasted so good to me afore. There!"

"That's all right," says I.

"No, it ain't all right. I'm much obliged, I tell you. You're a stubborn, obstinate, unreasonable old hayseed, but you're the most competent person in this town just the same. Of course though," he adds, sharp, "you understand that this don't affect our post-office fight in the least. That Blaisdell woman don't get it."

"Who said it did affect it?" I asked, just as snappy as he was. That's the way we parted and I wondered if I'd ever see him alive again.

I didn't see him for quite a spell, but I heard about him. I woke up nights expectin' to be jailed for murder, but I wa'n't; and when, three days later, Shelton started for Washin'ton, the Major went away on the train with him. Abubus and his wife shut up the house and went off, too, and nobody seemed to know where they'd gone. All's could be found out was that Abubus acted pretty ugly and wouldn't talk to anybody. This was comfortin' in a way, though, most likely, it didn't mean anything at all.

But at the end of two weeks a thing happened that meant somethin'. I got two letters in the mail, one in a big, long envelope postmarked from the Post-Office Department at Washington and the other a letter from Shelton himself. I don't suppose I'll ever forget that letter to my dyin' day.

"Dear Captain Snow," it begun. "You may be interested to know that our mutual friend, Major Clark, has suffered no ill effects from our picnic at the beach. In fact, he is better than he ever was and has been enjoying the comforts of city life to an extent which I should not dare attempt. Whether his long respite from such comforts helped, or whether the celebrated Doctor Conquest was responsible, I know not. The Major, however, declares Doctor Payne to be a fraud and to have been, as he says, 'working him for a sucker.' Therefore he has discharged the doctor and discharged the cousin with the odd name—your fellow townsman, Abubus Payne. The mishap with the auto was the beginning of Abubus's finish and the fact that no indigestion followed our chowder party completed it. And also—which may interest you still more—Major Clark has withdrawn his support of Payne's candidacy for the post-office and urged the appointment of another person, one whom he declares to be the only able, common-sense, honest man in the village. As I have long felt the appointment of a compromise candidate to be the sole solution of the problem, I was very happy to agree with him, particularly as I thoroughly approve of his choice. When you learn the new postmaster's name I trust you may agree with us both. I know the citizens of Ostable will do so.

"Yours sincerely,

"William A. Shelton.

"P.S. I am coming down next summer and shall expect another one of your chowders."

My hands shook as I ripped open the other envelope. I knew what was comin'—somethin' inside me warned me what to expect. And there it was. Me—me—Zebulon Snow, was app'inted postmaster of Ostable!

Was I mad? I was crazy! I fairly hopped up and down. What in thunder did I want of the postmastership? And if I wanted it ever so much did they think I was a traitor? Was it likely that I'd take it, after workin' tooth and nail for Mary Blaisdell? What would Mary say to me? By time, I'd show 'em! It should go back that minute and my free and frank opinion with it. I'd kicked one chair to pieces already, and was beginnin' on another, when Jim Henry Jacobs come runnin' in and stopped me.

No use to goin' into particulars of the argument we had. It lasted till after one o'clock next mornin'. Jim Henry argued and coaxed and proved and I ripped and vowed I wouldn't. He was tickled to death. The post-office was the greatest thing to bring trade that the store could have, and so on. I must take the job. If I didn't somebody else would, somebody that, more'n likely, we wouldn't like any better than we did Abubus.

"No," says I. "No! Mary Blaisdell shall have—"

"She won't get it anyway," says he. "She's out of it—Shelton as much as says so—whatever happens. And she don't want the title anyway. All she needs or cares for is the pay and I've thought of a way to fix that. You listen."

I listened—under protest, and the upshot of it was that the next day I went up to see Mary. She'd heard that I was likely to get the appointment—old Clark had been doin' some hintin' afore he left town, I cal'late—and she congratulated me as hearty as if 'twas what she'd wanted all along. But I wa'n't huntin' congratulations. I felt as mean as if I'd been took up by the constable for bein' a chicken thief, and I told her so.

"Mary," says I, "I wa'n't after the postmastership. I swear by all that is good and great I wa'n't. I don't know what you must think of me."

"What I've always thought," says she, "and what poor Henry thought before he died. My opinion is like Major Clark's," with a kind of half smile, "that the appointment has gone to the best man in Ostable."

"My, my!" says I. "Your digestion ain't given you delirium, has it? No sir-ee! I'm no more fit to be postmaster than a ship's goat is to teach school."

"You mustn't talk so," she says, earnest. "You will take the position, won't you?"

"I'll take it," says I, "under one condition." Then I told her what the condition was. She argued against it at fust, but after I'd said flat-footed that 'twas either that or the government could take its appointment and make paper boats of it, and she'd seen that I meant it, she give in.

"But," says she, chokin' up a little, "I know you're doin' this just to help me. How I can ever repay your kindness I don't—"

I cut in quick. My deadlights was more misty than I like to have 'em. "Rubbish!" says I, "I'm doin' it to win my bet with old Clark. I'd do anything to beat out that old critter."

So it happened that when, along in November, the Major came back to Ostable to look over his place, afore leavin' for Florida, and come into the store, I was ready for him. He grinned and asked me if he had any mail.

"While you're about it," he says, chucklin', "you can pay me that bet."

Now the very sound of the word "bet" hit me on a sore place. I'd lost one hat to Mr. Pike and the letter I'd got from him rubbed me across the grain every time I thought of it.

"What bet?" says I.

"Why, the bet you made that the Blaisdell woman would be postmistress here."

"I didn't bet that," I says.

"You didn't?" he roared. "You did, too! You bet—"

"I bet that Mary would handle the mail, that's all. So she will; fact is, she's handlin' it now. She's my assistant in the post-office here. If you don't believe it, go back to the mail window and look in. No, Major, I win the bet."

Maybe I did, but he wouldn't pay it. He vowed I was a low down swindler and a "welsher," whatever that is. He blew out of that store like a toy typhoon and I didn't see him again until the next summer. However, I had a feelin' that Major Cobden Clark wa'n't the wust friend I had, by a consider'ble sight.

You see, that was Jim Henry's great scheme—to hire Mary to run the office as my assistant. He didn't say what salary I was to pay her, and, if I chose to hand over three-quarters of the postmaster's pay to her, what business was it of his? I told him that plain, and, to do him justice, he didn't seem to care.

But he did rub it in about my declarin' I'd never go into politics.

In a little while the mail department was as much a part of the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" as the calico and dress goods counter. We bought the Blaisdell letter-box rack and fixin's and set 'em up and they done fust-rate for the time bein'. I was postmaster, so fur as name goes, but 'twas Mary that really run that end of the ship. It seemed as natural to have her come in mornin's, as it did for the sun to rise; and, if she was late, which didn't happen often, it seemed almost as if the sun hadn't rose. The old store needed somethin' like her to keep it clean and sweet and even Jim Henry give in that she was the best investment the business had made yet.

As for business it kept on good, even though the summer folks had gone and winter had set in. Our order carts kept runnin' and they took orders, too. The store was doin' well by us both and I certainly owed old Pullet a debt of thanks for workin' on my sympathies until I put my cash into it. There was consider'ble buildin' goin' on in town and, when spring begun to show symptoms of makin' Ostable harbor, Jim Henry got possessed of a new idea. I didn't pay much attention at fust. He was always as full of notions as a peddler's cart and if I took every one of 'em serious we'd either been Rockefellers or star boarders at the poorhouse, one or t'other. 'Twa'n't till that day in April when old Ebenezer Taylor came in after his mail and went out after the constable that I realized somethin' had to be done.

You see, Ebenezer's eyes was failin' on him and, to make things worse, he'd forgot his nigh-to specs and had on his far-off pair. Consequently, when he headed for the after end of the store, he wa'n't in no condition to keep clear of the rocks and shoals in the channel. Fust thing he run into was a couple of dress-forms with some bargain calico gowns on 'em. While he was beggin' pardon of them forms, under the impression that they was women customers, he backed into a roll of barbed wire fencin' that was leanin' against the candy and cigar counter. His clothes was sort of thin and if that barbed wire had been somebody tryin' to borrer a quarter of him he couldn't have jumped higher or been more emphatic in his remarks. The third jump landed him against the gunwale of a bushel basket of eggs that Jacobs was makin' a special run on and had set out prominent in the aisle. Maybe Ebenezer was tired from the jumpin' or maybe the excitement had gone to his head and he thought he was a hen. Anyhow he set on them eggs, and in two shakes of a heifer's tail he was the messiest lookin' omelet ever I see. Jacobs and me and the clerk scraped him off best we could with pieces of barrel hoop and the cheese knife, and Mary come out from behind the letter boxes and helped along with the floor mop, but when we'd finished with him he was consider'ble more like somethin' for breakfast than he was human.

And mad! An April fool chocolate cream couldn't have been more peppery than he was. He distributed his commentaries around pretty general—Mary got some and so did Jacobs—but the heft was fired at me. He hated me anyhow, 'count of my bein' made postmaster and for some other reasons.

"You—you thunderin' murderer!" he hollered, shakin' his old fist in my face. "'Twas all your fault. You done it a-purpose. Look at me! Look! my legs punched full of holes like a skimmer, and—and my clothes! Just look at my clothes! A whole suit ruined! A suit I paid ten dollars and a half for—"

"Ten year and a half ago," I put in, involuntary, as you might say.

"It's a lie. 'Twon't be nine year till next September. You think you're funny, don't you? Ever since this consarned, robbin' Black Republican administration made you postmaster! Postmaster! You're a healthy postmaster! I'll have you arrested! I'll march straight out and have you took up. I will!"

He headed for the door. I didn't say nothin'. I was sorry about the clothes and I'd have paid for 'em willin'ly, but arguin' just then was a waste of time, as the feller said when the deef and dumb man caught him stealin' apples. Ebenezer stamped as fur as the door and then turned around.

"I may not have you took up," he says; "but I'll get even with you, Zeb Snow, yet. You wait."

After he'd gone and we'd made the place look a little less like an egg-nog, I took Jim Henry by the sleeve and led him into the back room where we could be alone. Even there the surroundin's was so cluttered up with goods and bales and boxes that we had to stand edgeways and talk out of the sides of our mouths.

"Jim," says I, "this place of ours ain't big enough. We've got to have more room."

He pretended to be dreadful surprised.

"Why, why, Skipper!" he says. "You shock me. This is so sudden. What put such an idea as that in your head? Seems to me I have a vague remembrance of handin' you that suggestion no less than twenty-five times since the last change of the moon, but I hope that didn't influence you."

"Aw, dry up," says I. "You was right. Let it go at that. Afore I got the postmastership this buildin' was big enough. Now it ain't. We've got to build on or move or somethin'. Have you got any definite plan?"

He smiled, superior and top-lofty, and reached over to pat me on the back; but reachin' in that crowded junk-shop was bad judgment, 'cause his elbow hit against the corner of a tea chest and his next set of remarks was as explosive and fiery as a box of ship rockets.

"Never mind the blessin'," I says. "Go ahead with the fust course. Have you got anything up your sleeve? anything besides that bump, I mean."

Well, it seems he had. Seems he'd thought it all out. We'd ought to buy Philander Foster's buildin', which was on the next lot to ours, move it close up, cut doors through, and use it for the post-office department.

"Humph!" says I, after I'd turned the notion over in my mind. "That ain't so bad, considerin' where it come from. I can only sight one possible objection in the offin'."

"What's that, you confounded Jezebel?" he says.

"Jezebel?" says I. "What on airth do you call me that for?"

"'Cause you're him all over," he says. "He was the feller I used to hear about in Sunday School, the prophet chap that was always croakin' and believed everything was goin' to the dogs. That was Jezebel, wasn't it?"

"No," says I, "that was Jeremiah; Jezebel was the one the dogs went to. And she was a woman, at that."

"Well, all right," he says. "Whatever he or she was they didn't have anything on you when it comes to croaks. What's the objection?"

"Nothin' much. Only I don't know's you've happened to think that Philander might not care to sell his buildin', to us or to anybody else."

That was all right. We could go and see, couldn't we? Well, we could of course—and we did.