Joe liked the store.  There was a large stock of candy, dried fruit, crackers and pickles; Joe was a hungry boy, and Mr. Daggett had told him he could eat what he wished.  He was an easy-going man with no children of his own, and he took great delight in pampering the Deacon’s son.  “I told him he could eat candy and things, and he looked tickled to death,” he told his wife.

“He’ll get his stomach upset,” objected Mrs. Daggett.

“He can’t eat the whole stock,” said Daggett, “and upsetting a boy’s stomach is not much of an upset anyway.  It don’t take long to right it.”

Once in a while Daggett would suggest to Joe that if he were in his place he wouldn’t eat too much of that green candy.  He supposed it was pure; he didn’t mean to sell any but pure candy if he knew it, but it might be just as well for him to go slow.  Generally he took a paternal delight in watching the growing boy eat his stock in trade.

That afternoon Joe was working on a species of hard sweet which distended his cheeks, and nearly deprived him temporarily of the power of speech, while the people seeking their mail came in.  There was never much custom while mail-sorting was going on, and Joe sucked blissfully.

Then Jim Dodge entered and spoke to him.  “Hullo, Joe,” he said.

Joe nodded, speechless.

Jim seated himself on a stool, and lit his pipe.

Joe eyed him.  Jim was a sort of hero to him on account of his hunting fame.  As soon as he could control his tongue, he addressed him: 

“Heard the news?” said he, trying to speak like a man.

“What news?”

“Old Andrew Bolton’s got out of prison and come back.  He’s crazy, too.”

“How did you get hold of such nonsense?”

“Heard the women talking.”

Jim pondered a moment.  Then he said “Damn,” and Joe admired him as never before.  When Jim had gone out, directly, Joe shook his fist at a sugar barrel, and said “Damn,” in a whisper.

Jim in the meantime was hurrying along the road to the Bolton house.  He made up his mind that he must see Lydia.  He must know if she had authorized the revelation that had evidently been made, and if so, through whom.  He suspected the minister, and was hot with jealousy.  His own friendship with Lydia seemed to have suffered a blight after that one confidential talk of theirs, in which she had afforded him a glimpse of her sorrowful past.  She had not alluded to the subject a second time; and, somehow, he had not been able to get behind the defenses of her smiling cheerfulness.  Always she was with her father, it seemed; and the old man, garrulous enough when alone, was invariably silent and moody in his daughter’s company.  One might almost have said he hated her, from the sneering impatient looks he cast at her from time to time.  As for Lydia, she was all love and brooding tenderness for the man who had suffered so long and terribly.