Mr. Arp ceased to fan himself with his wide straw hat and said grimly: 

“I don’t see as Jonas has `turned out’—­not in particular!  If he’s turned at all, lately, I reckon it’s in his grave, and I’ll bet he has if he had any way of hearin’ how much she must of spent for clothes!”

“I believe,” Squire Buckalew began, “that young folks’ memories are short.”

“They’re lucky!” interjected Eskew.  “The shorter your memory the less meanness you know.”

“I meant young folks don’t remember as well as older people do,” continued the Squire.  “I don’t see what’s so remarkable in her comin’ back and walkin’ up-street with Joe Louden.  She used to go kitin’ round with him all the time, before she left here.  And yet everybody talks as if they never heard of sech a thing!”

“It seems to me,” said Colonel Flitcroft, hesitatingly, “that she did right.  I know it sounds kind of a queer thing to say, and I stirred up a good deal of opposition at home, yesterday evening, by sort of mentioning something of the kind.  Nobody seemed to agree with me, except Norbert, and he didn’t say much, but—­”

He was interrupted by an uncontrollable cackle which issued from the mouth of Mr. Arp.  The Colonel turned upon him with a frown, inquiring the cause of his mirth.

“It put me in mind,” Mr. Arp began promptly, “of something that happened last night.”

“What was it?”

Eskew’s mouth was open to tell, but he remembered, just in time, that the grandfather of Norbert was not the audience properly to be selected for this recital, choked a half-born word, coughed loudly, realizing that he must withhold the story of the felling of Martin Pike until the Colonel had taken his departure, and replied: 

“Nothin’ to speak of.  Go on with your argument.”

“I’ve finished,” said the Colonel.  “I only wanted to say that it seems to me a good action for a young lady like that to come back here and stick to her old friend and playmate.”

“Stick to him!” echoed Mr. Arp.  “She walked up Main Street with him yesterday.  Do you call that stickin’ to him?  She’s been away a good while; she’s forgotten what Canaan is.  You wait till she sees for herself jest what his standing in this com—­”

“I agree with Eskew for once,” interrupted Peter Bradbury.  “I agree because—­”

“Then you better wait,” cried Eskew, allowing him to proceed no farther, “till you hear what you’re agreein’ to!  I say:  you take a young lady like that, pretty and rich and all cultured up, and it stands to reason that she won’t—­”

“No, it don’t,” exclaimed Buckalew, impatiently.  “Nothing of the sort!  I tell you—­”