“Aunt Listy, they call her.  Nobody ever knew how he come to marry her.  Jethro went up to Wisdom once, in the centre of the state, and come back with her.  Funny place to bring a wife from—­Wisdom!  Funnier place to bring Listy from.  He loads her down with them ribbons and gewgaws—­all the shades of the rainbow!  Says he wants her to be the best-dressed woman in the state.  Callate she is,” added Moses, with conviction.  “Listy’s a fine woman, but all she knows is enough to say, ‘Yes, Jethro,’ and ’No, Jethro.’—­Guess that’s all Jethro wants in a wife; but he certainly is good to her.”

“And why has he come back before the Legislature’s over?” said Wetherell.

“Cuttin’ of his farms.  Always comes back hayin’ time.  That’s the way Jethro spends the money he makes in politics, and he hain’t no more of a farmer than—­” Moses looked at Wetherell.

“Than I’m a storekeeper,” said the latter, smiling.

“Than I’m a lawyer,” said Moses, politely.

They were interrupted at this moment by the appearance of Jake Wheeler and Sam Price, who came gaping out of the darkness of the store.

“Was that Jethro, Mose?” demanded Jake.  “Guess we’ll go along up and see if there’s any orders.”

“I suppose the humblest of God’s critturs has their uses,” Moses remarked contemplatively, as he watched the retreating figures of Sam and Jake.  “Leastwise that’s Jethro’s philosophy.  When you come to know him, you’ll notice how much those fellers walk like him.  Never seed a man who had so many imitators.  Some of,’em’s took to talkie’ like him, even to stutterin’.  Bijah Bixby, over to Clovelly, comes pretty nigh it, too.”

Moses loaded his sugar and beans into his wagon, and drove off.

An air of suppressed excitement seemed to pervade those who came that afternoon to the store to trade and talk—­mostly to talk.  After such purchases as they could remember were made, they lingered on the barrels and on the stoop, in the hope of seeing Jethro, whose habit; it was, apparently, to come down and dispense such news as he thought fit for circulation.  That Wetherell shared this excitement, too, he could not deny, but for a different cause.  At last, when the shadows of the big trees had crept across the green, he came, the customers flocking to the porch to greet him, Wetherell standing curiously behind them in the door.  Heedless of the dust, he strode down the road with the awkward gait that was all his own, kicking up his heels behind.  And behind him, heels kicking up likewise, followed Jake and Sam, Jethro apparently oblivious of their presence.  A modest silence was maintained from the stoop, broken at length by Lem Hallowell, who (men said) was an exact reproduction of Jock, the meeting-house builder.  Lem alone was not abashed in the presence of greatness.

“How be you, Jethro?” he said heartily.  “Air the Legislatur’ behavin’ themselves?”

“B-bout as common,” said Jethro.