The normally quiet and unfrequented street leading down to the boat-landing was presently thronged by Rivermouthians—­men, women, and children.  The arrival of a United States vessel always stirred an emotion in the town.  Naval officers were prime favorites in aristocratic circles, and there were few ships in the service that did not count among their blue-jackets one or more men belonging to the port.  Thus all sea-worn mariners in Uncle Sam’s employ were sure of both patrician and democratic welcome at Rivermouth.  But the present ship contained an especially valuable cargo.

It was a patient and characteristically undemonstrative crowd that assembled on the wharf, a crowd content to wait an hour or more without a murmur after the ship had dropped anchor in midstream for the captain’s gig to be lowered from the davits.  The shrill falsetto of the boatswain’s whistle suddenly informed those on shore of what was taking place on the starboard side, and in a few minutes the gig came sweeping across the blue water, with James Dutton seated in the stern-sheets and looking very pale.  He sat there, from time to time pulling his blond mustache, evidently embarrassed.  A cheer or two rose from the wharf when the eight gleaming blades simultaneously stood upright in air, as if the movement had been performed by some mechanism.  The disembarkment followed in dead silence, for the interest was too novel and too intense to express itself noisily.  Those nearest to James Dutton pressed forward to shake hands with him, but this ceremony had to be dispensed with as he hobbled on his crutches through the crowd, piloted by Postmaster Mugridge to the hack which stood in waiting at the head of the wharf.

Dutton was driven directly to his own little cottage in Nutter’s Lane, which had been put in order for his occupancy.  The small grocery closet had been filled with supplies, the fire had been lighted in the diminutive kitchen stove, and the tea-kettle was twittering on top, like a bird on a bough.  The Twombly girls, Priscilla and Mehitabel, had set some pansies and lilacs here and there in blue china mugs, and decorated with greenery the faded daguerreotype of old Nehemiah Dutton, which hung like a slowly dissolving ghost over his ancient shoemaker’s bench.  As James Dutton hobbled into the contracted room where he had spent the tedious years of his youth and manhood, he had to lift a hand from one of the crutches to brush away the tears that blinded him.  It was so good to be at home again!

 [Illustration with caption:  Held an informal reception]

That afternoon, Dutton held an informal reception.  There was a constant coming and going of persons not in the habit of paying visits in so unfashionable a neighborhood as Nutter’s Lane.  Now and then a townsman, conscious that his unimportance did not warrant his unintroduced presence inside, lounged carelessly by the door; and through the rest of the day several small boys turned somersaults and skylarked