He raised his hat and they parted.

Town Meeting Day proved to be a bright and pleasant one.  At nine o’clock the Town Hall was filled with the citizens of Eastborough.  They had come from the Centre, they had come from West Eastborough and from Mason’s Corner.  There were very nearly four hundred gathered upon the floor, the majority of them being horny-handed sons of toil, or, more properly speaking, independent New England farmers.

When Jeremiah Spinney, the oldest man in town, who had reached the age of ninety-two, and who declared that he hadn’t “missed a town meetin’ for seventy year,” called the meeting to order, a hush fell upon the assemblage.  In a cracked, but still distinct voice, he called for a nomination for Moderator of the meeting.  Abraham Mason’s name, of Mason’s Corner, was the only one presented.  The choice was by acclamation; for it was acknowledged on all sides that Deacon Mason was as square a man as there was in town.

The newly-elected Moderator took the chair and called upon the clerk to read the warrant for the meeting.  This was soon done, and the transaction of the town’s business begun in earnest.  It will be, of course, impossible and unnecessary to give a complete and connected account of all that took place in town meeting on that day.  For such an account the trader is referred to the columns of the “Eastborough Express,” for it was afterwards acknowledged on all sides that the account of the meeting written by Mr. Sylvester Chisholm was the most graphic and comprehensive that had ever appeared in that paper.  We have to do only with those items in the warrant that related directly or indirectly to those residents of the town with whom we are interested.

When the question of appropriating a certain sum for the support of the town Almshouse was reached, Obadiah Strout sprang to his feet and called out, “Mister Moderator,” in a loud voice.  He was recognized, and addressed the chair as follows: 

“Mister Moderator, before a vote is taken on the questions of appropriatin’ for the support of the town poor, I wish to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to a matter that has come to my knowledge durin’ the past year.  A short time ago a man who had been a town charge for more than three years, and whose funeral expenses were paid by the town, was discovered by me to be the only brother of a man livin’ in Boston, who is said to be worth a million dollars.  A very strange circumstance was that the son of this wealthy man, and a nephew of this town pauper, has been livin’ in this town for several months, and spendin’ his money in every way that he could think of to attract attention, but it never occurred to him that he could have used his money to better advantage if he had taken some of it and paid it to the town for takin’ care of his uncle.  These facts are well known to many of us here, and I move that a ballot—­”

Tobias Smith had been fidgeting uneasily in his seat while Strout was speaking, and when he mentioned the word “ballot,” he could restrain himself no longer, but jumped to Bids feet and called out in his stentorian voice, “Mister Moderator, I rise to a question of privilege.”