Mr. Wetherell didn’t know, but he was given no time to say so.

“Steve Merrill, of the Grand Gulf and Northern.  He hain’t here to see Worthington; he’s here to see Jethro, when Jethro’s a mind to.  Guess you understand.”

“I know nothing about it,” answered Wetherell, shortly.  Mr. Bixby gave him a look of infinite admiration, as though he could not have pursued any more admirable line.

“I know Steve Merrill better’n I know you,” said Mr. Bixby, “and he knows me.  Whenever he sees me at the state capital he says, ‘How be you, Bije?’ just as natural as if I was a railroad president, and slaps me on the back.  When be you goin’ to the capital, Will?  You’d ought to come down and be thar with the boys on this Truro Bill.  You could reach some on ’em the rest of us couldn’t git at.”

William Wetherell avoided a reply to this very pointed inquiry by escaping into the meeting-house, where he found Jethro and Cynthia and Ephraim already seated halfway up the aisle.

On the platform, behind a bank of flowers, are the velvet covered chairs which contain the dignitaries of the occasion.  The chief of these is, of course, Mr. Isaac Worthington, the one with the hawk-like look, sitting next to the Rev. Mr. Sweet, who is rather pudgy by contrast.  On the other side of Mr. Sweet, next to the parlor organ and the quartette, is the genial little railroad president Mr. Merrill, batting the flies which assail the unprotected crown of his head, and smiling benignly on the audience.

Suddenly his eye becomes fixed, and he waves a fat hand vigorously at Jethro, who answers the salute with a nod of unwonted cordiality for him.  Then comes a hush, and the exercises begin.

There is a prayer, of course, by the Rev. Mr. Sweet, and a rendering of “My Country” and “I would not Change my Lot,” and other choice selections by the quartette; and an original poem recited with much feeling by a lady admirer of Miss Lucretia Penniman, and the “Hymn to Coniston” declaimed by Mr. Gamaliel Ives, president of the Brampton Literary Club.  But the crowning event is, of course, the oration by Mr. Isaac D. Worthington, the first citizen, who is introduced under that title by the chairman of the day; and as the benefactor of Brampton, who has bestowed upon the town the magnificent gift which was dedicated such a short time ago, the Worthington Free Library.

Mr. Isaac D. Worthington stood erect beside the table, his hand thrust into the opening of his coat, and spoke at the rate of one hundred and eight words a minute, for exactly one hour.  He sketched with much skill the creed of the men who had fought their way through the forests to build their homes by Coniston Water, who had left their clearings to risk their lives behind Stark and Ethan Allen for that creed; he paid a graceful tribute to the veterans of the Civil War, scattered among his hearers—­a tribute, by the way, which for some reason made Ephraim