The fust week slipped along, and everything was serene. Bulletins from Ebenezer more encouragin’ every day, and no squalls in sight. But ’twas almost too slick. I was afraid the calm was a weather breeder, and sure enough, the hurricane struck us the day after that fishin’ trip. Peter had gone drivin’ with Maudina and her dad, and me and Cap’n Jonadab was smokin’ on the front piazza. I was pullin’ at a pipe, but the cap’n had the home end of one of Stumpton’s cigars harpooned on the little blade of his jackknife, and was busy pumpin’ the last drop of comfort out of it. I never see a man who wanted to git his money’s wuth more’n Jonadab. I give you my word, I expected to see him swaller that cigar remnant every minute. And all to once he gives a gurgle in his throat. “Take a drink of water,” says I, scared like. “Well, by time!” says he, p’intin’. A feller had jest turned the corner of the house and was headin’ up in our direction. He was a thin, lengthy craft, with more’n the average amount of wrists stickin’ out of his sleeves, and with long black hair trimmed aft behind his ears and curlin’ on the back of his neck. He had high cheek bones and kind of sunk-in black eyes, and altogether he looked like “Dr. Macgoozleum, the Celebrated Blackfoot Medicine Man.” If he’d hollered: “Sagwa Bitters, only one dollar a bottle!” I wouldn’t have been surprised. But his clothes--don’t say a word! His coat was long and buttoned up tight, so’s you couldn’t tell whether he had a vest on or not--though ’twas a safe bet he hadn’t--and it and his pants was made of the loudest kind of black-and-white checks. No nice quiet pepper-and-salt, you understand, but the checkerboard kind, the oilcloth kind, the kind that looks like the marble floor in the Boston post office. They was pretty tolerable seedy, and so was his hat. Oh, he was a last year’s bird’s nest _now_, but when them clothes was fresh--whew! the northern lights and a rainbow mixed wouldn’t have been more’n a cloudy day ’longside of him. He run up to the piazza like a clipper comin’ into port, and he sweeps off that rusty hat and hails us grand and easy. “Good-mornin’, gentlemen,” says he. “We don’t want none,” says Jonadab, decided. The feller looked surprised. “I beg your pardon,” says he. “You don’t want any--what?” “We don’t want any ‘Life of King Solomon’ nor ‘The World’s Big Classifyers.’ And we don’t want to buy any patent paint, nor sewin’ machines, nor clothes washers, nor climbin’ evergreen roses, nor rheumatiz salve. And we don’t want our pictures painted, neither.” Jonadab was gittin’ excited. Nothin’ riles him wuss than a peddler, unless it’s a woman sellin’ tickets to a church fair. The feller swelled up until I thought the top button on that thunderstorm coat would drag anchor, sure. “You are mistaken,” says he. “I have called to see Mr. Peter Brown; he is--er--a relative of mine.”