CHAPTER X

It so happened that there was a certain spinster whom Sam Price had been trying to make up his mind to marry for ten years or more, and it was that gentleman’s habit to spend at least one day in the month in Harwich for the purpose of paying his respects.  In spite of the fact that his horse had been “stun lame” the night before, Mr. Price was able to start for Harwich, via Brampton, very early the next morning.  He was driving along through Northcutt’s woods with one leg hanging over the wheel, humming through his nose what we may suppose to have been a love-ditty, and letting his imagination run riot about the lady in question, when he nearly fell out of his wagon.  The cause of this was the sight of fat Tom coming around a corner, with Jethro Bass behind him.  Lem Hallowell and the storekeeper had kept their secret so well that Sam, if he was thinking about Jethro at all, believed him at that moment to be seated in the Throne Room at the Pelican House, in the capital.

Mr. Price, however, was one of an adaptable nature, and by the time he had pulled up beside Jethro he had recovered sufficiently to make a few remarks on farming subjects, and finally to express a polite surprise at Jethro’s return.

“But you come a little mite late, hain’t you, Jethro?” he asked finally, with all of the indifference he could assume.

“H-how’s that, Sam—­how’s that?”

“It’s too bad,—­I swan it is,—­but Lem Hallowell rode over to Harwich last night and indicted the town for that piece of road by the Four Corners.  Took Will Wetherell along with him.”

“D-don’t say so!” said Jethro.

“I callate he done it,” responded Sam, pulling a long face.  “The court’ll hev to send an agent to do the job, and I guess you’ll hev to foot the bill, Jethro.”

“C-court’ll hev to app’int an agent?”

“I callate.”

“Er—­you a candidate—­Sam—­you a candidate?”

“Don’t know but what I be,” answered the usually wary Mr. Price.

“G-goin’ to Harwich—­hain’t you?”

“Mebbe I be, and mebbe I hain’t,” said Sam, not able to repress a self-conscious snicker.

“M-might as well be you as anybody, Sam,” said Jethro, as he drove on.

It was not strange that the idea, thus planted, should grow in Mr. Price’s favor as he proceeded.  He had been surprised at Jethro’s complaisance, and he wondered whether, after all, he had done well to help Chester stir people up at this time.  When he reached Harwich, instead of presenting himself promptly at the spinster’s house, he went first to the office of Judge Parkinson, as became a prudent man of affairs.

Perhaps there is no need to go into the details of Mr. Price’s discomfiture on the occasion of this interview.  The judge was by nature of a sour disposition, but he haw-hawed so loudly as he explained to Mr. Price the identity of the road agent that the judge of probate in the next office thought his colleague had gone mad.  Afterward Mr. Price stood for some time in the entry, where no one could see him, scratching his head and repeating his favorite exclamation, “I want to know!” It has been ascertained that he omitted to pay his respects to the spinster on that day.