Jethro was content to wait.  That is a clew to his character throughout his life.  He would wait for his love, he would wait for his hate:  he had waited ten years before putting into practice the first step of a little scheme which he had been gradually developing during that time, for which he had been amassing money, and the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by the way, had given him some valuable ideas.  Jethro, as well as Isaac D. Worthington, had ambitions, although no one in Coniston had hitherto guessed them except Jock Hallowell—­and Cynthia Ware, after her curiosity had been aroused.

Even as Isaac D. Worthington did not dream of the Truro Railroad and of an era in the haze of futurity, it did not occur to Jethro Bass that his ambitions tended to the making of another era that was at hand.  Makers of eras are too busy thinking about themselves and like immediate matters to worry about history.  Jethro never heard the expression about “cracks in the Constitution,” and would not have known what it meant,—­he merely had the desire to get on top.  But with Established Church Coniston tight in the saddle (in the person of Moses Hatch, Senior), how was he to do it?

As the winter wore on, and March town meeting approached, strange rumors of a Democratic ticket began to drift into Jonah Winch’s store,—­a Democratic ticket headed by Fletcher Bartlett, of all men, as chairman of the board.  Moses laughed when he first heard of it, for Fletcher was an easy-going farmer of the Methodist persuasion who was always in debt, and the other members of the ticket, so far as Moses could learn of it—­were remarkable neither for orthodoxy or solidity.  The rumors persisted, and still Moses laughed, for the senior selectman was a big man with flesh on him, who could laugh with dignity.

“Moses,” said Deacon Lysander Richardson as they stood on the platform of the store one sunny Saturday in February, “somebody’s put Fletcher up to this.  He hain’t got sense enough to act that independent all by himself.”

“You be always croakin’, Lysander,” answered Moses.

Cynthia Ware, who had come to the store for buttons for Speedy Bates, who was making a new coat for the minister, heard these remarks, and stood thoughtfully staring at the blue coat-tails of the elders.  A brass button was gone from Deacon Lysander’s, and she wanted to sew it on.  Suddenly she looked up, and saw Jock Hallowell standing beside her.  Jock winked—­and Cynthia blushed and hurried homeward without a word.  She remembered, vividly enough, what Jack had told her the spring before, and several times during the week that followed she thought of waylaying him and asking what he knew.  But she could not summon the courage.  As a matter of fact, Jock knew nothing, but he had a theory.  He was a strange man, Jock, who whistled all day on roof and steeple and meddled with nobody’s business, as a rule.  What had impelled him to talk to Cynthia in the way he had must remain a mystery.