Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. The dam across the creek was furnishing power for a flour-mill and a furniture factory. The endless worm of wagons that was wriggling through the town carrying movers to the West, was sloughing many of its scales in Sycamore Ridge. Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars describing the town and adjacent country. He had brought back three stage loads of settlers, and was selling lots in Culpepper's addition faster than they could be surveyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had become a wagon shop, and then a hardware store was added; the flag fluttered from the high flagstaff over the Exchange National Bank building, and all day long farmers were going from the mill to the bank. General Philemon Ward gave up school-teaching and went back to his law office; but he was apt to take sides with President Andrew Johnson too vigorously for his own good, and clients often avoided his office in fear of an argument. Still he was cheerful, and being only in his early thirties, looked at the green hills afar from his pasture and was happy. The Thayer House was filled with guests, and the Fernalds had money in the bank; Mary Murphy and Gabriel Carnine were living happily ever after, and Nellie Logan was clerking in Dorman's Dry Goods store and making Watts McHurdie understand that she had her choice between a preacher and a drummer. Other girls in the dining room of the Thayer House were rattling the dinner dishes and singing "Sweet Belle Mahone" and "Do you love me, Molly Darling?" to ensnare the travelling public that might be tilted back against the veranda in a mood for romance. And as John and Bob that hot September afternoon made the round of the stores and offices bidding the town good-by, it seemed to them that perhaps they were seizing the shadow and letting the substance fade. For it was such a good-natured busy little place that their hearts were heavy at leaving it. But that evening John in his gorgeous necktie, his clean paper collar, his new stiff hat, his first store clothes, wearing proudly his father's silver watch and chain, set out to say good-by to Ellen Culpepper, and his mother, standing in the doorway of their home, sighed at his limp and laughed at his strut--the first laugh she had enjoyed in a dozen days.