It is not our place here to chronicle Eliphalet’s faults.  Whatever he may have been, he was not lazy.  But he was an anomaly to the rest of the young men in the store, for those were days when political sentiments decided fervent loves or hatreds.  In two days was Eliphalet’s reputation for wisdom made.  During that period he opened his mouth to speak but twice.  The first was in answer to a pointless question of Mr. Barbo’s (aetat 25), to the effect that he, Eliphalet Hopper, was a Pierce Democrat, who looked with complacency on the extension of slavery.  This was wholly satisfactory, and saved the owner of these sentiments a broken head.  The other time Eliphalet spoke was to ask Mr. Barbo to direct him to a boardinghouse.

“I reckon,” Mr. Barbo reflected, “that you’ll want one of them Congregational boarding-houses.  We’ve got a heap of Yankees in the town, and they all flock together and pray together.  I reckon you’d ruther go to Miss Crane’s nor anywhere.”

Forthwith to Miss Crane’s Eliphalet went.  And that lady, being a Greek herself, knew a Greek when she saw one.  The kind-hearted Barbo lingered in the gathering darkness to witness the game which ensued, a game dear to all New Englanders, comical to Barbo.  The two contestants calculated.  Barbo reckoned, and put his money on his new-found fellow-clerk.  Eliphalet, indeed, never showed to better advantage.  The shyness he had used with the Colonel, and the taciturnity practised on his fellow-clerks, he slipped off like coat and waistcoat for the battle.  The scene was in the front yard of the third house in Dorcas Row.  Everybody knows where Dorcas Row was.  Miss Crane, tall, with all the severity of side curls and bombazine, stood like a stone lioness at the gate.  In the background, by the steps, the boarders sat, an interested group.  Eliphalet girded up his loins, and sharpened his nasal twang to cope with hers.  The preliminary sparring was an exchange of compliments, and deceived neither party.  It seemed rather to heighten mutual respect.

“You be from Willesden, eh?” said Crane.  “I calculate you know the Salters.”

If the truth were known, this evidence of an apparent omniscience rather staggered Eliphalet.  But training stood by him, and he showed no dismay.  Yes, he knew the Salters, and had drawed many a load out of Hiram Salters’ wood-lot to help pay for his schooling.

“Let me see,” said Miss Crane, innocently; “who was it one of them Salters girls married, and lived across the way from the meetin’-house?”

“Spauldin’,” was the prompt reply.

“Wal, I want t’ know!” cried the spinster:  “not Ezra Spauldin’?”

Eliphalet nodded.  That nod was one of infinite shrewdness which commended itself to Miss Crane.  These courtesies, far from making awkward the material discussion which followed; did not affect it in the least.

“So you want me to board you?” said she, as if in consternation.