Thus William Wetherell became established in Coniston, and was started at last—­poor man—­upon a life that was fairly tranquil.  Lem Hallowell had once covered him with blushes by unfolding a newspaper in the store and reading an editorial beginning:  “We publish today a new and attractive feature of the Guardian, a weekly contribution from a correspondent whose modesty is to be compared only with his genius as a writer.  We are confident that the readers of our Raper will appreciate the letter in another column signed ‘W.  W.’” And from that day William was accorded much of the deference due to a litterateur which the fates had hitherto denied him.  Indeed, during the six years which we are about to skip over so lightly, he became a marked man in Coniston, and it was voted in towns meeting that he be intrusted with that most important of literary labors, the Town History of Coniston.

During this period, too, there sprang up the strangest of intimacies between him and Jethro Bass.  Surely no more dissimilar men than these have ever been friends, and that the friendship was sometimes misjudged was one of the clouds on William Wetherell’s horizon.  As the years went on he was still unable to pay off the mortgage; and sometimes, indeed, he could not even meet the interest, in spite of the princely sum he received from Mr. Willard of the Guardian.  This was one of the clouds on Jethro’s horizon, too, if men had but known it, and he took such moneys as Wetherell insisted upon giving him grudgingly enough.  It is needless to say that he refrained from making use of Mr. Wetherell politically, although no poorer vessel for political purposes was ever constructed.  It is quite as needless to say, perhaps, that Chester Perkins never got to be Chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

After Aunt Listy died, Jethro was more than ever to be found, when in Coniston, in the garden or the kitchen behind the store.  Yes, Aunt Listy is dead.  She has flitted through these pages as she flitted through life itself, arrayed by Jethro like the rainbow, and quite as shadowy and unreal.  There is no politician of a certain age in the state who does not remember her walking, clad in dragon-fly colors, through the streets of the capital on Jethro’s arm, or descending the stairs of the Pelican House to supper.  None of Jethro’s detractors may say that he ever failed in kindness to her, and he loved her as much as was in his heart to love any woman after Cynthia Ware.  As for Aunt Listy, she never seemed to feel any resentment against the child Jethro brought so frequently to Thousand Acre Hill.  Poor Aunt Listy! some people used to wonder whether she ever felt any emotion at all.  But I believe that she did, in her own way.

It is a well-known fact that Mr. Bijah Bixby came over from Clovelly, to request the place of superintendent of the funeral, a position which had already been filled.  A special office, too, was created on this occasion for an old supporter of Jethro’s, Senator Peleg Hartington of Brampton.  He was made chairman of the bearers, of whom Ephraim Prescott was one.