“Yes, I do,” groaned Captain Jerry lugubriously. “Durn it, that's jest it!” Captain Eri was chuckling as, lantern in hand, he passed around the corner of the little white house on the way to the barn. He chuckled all through the harnessing of Daniel, the venerable white horse. He was still chuckling as, perched on the seat of the “truck wagon,” he rattled and shook out of the yard and turned into the sandy road that led up to the village. And an outsider, hearing these chuckles, and knowing what had gone before, might have inferred that perhaps Captain Eri did not view the “matching” and the matrimonial project with quite the deadly seriousness of the other two occupants of the house by the shore. CHAPTER II THE TRAIN COMES IN There is in Orham a self-appointed committee whose duty it is to see the train come in. The committeemen receive no salary for their services; the sole compensation is the pleasure derived from the sense of duty done. Rain, snow, or shine, the committee is on hand at the station--the natives, of course, call it the “deepo”--to consume borrowed tobacco and to favor Providence with its advice concerning the running of the universe. Also it discusses local affairs with fluency and more or less point. Mr. “Squealer” Wixon, a lifelong member of this committee, was the first to sight Captain Eri as the latter strolled across the tracks into the circle of light from the station lamps. The Captain had moored Daniel to a picket in the fence over by the freight-house. He had heard the clock in the belfry of the Methodist church strike eight as he drove by that edifice, but he heard no whistle from the direction of the West Orham woods, so he knew that the down train would arrive at its usual time, that is, from fifteen to twenty minutes behind the schedule. “Hey!” shouted Mr. Wixon with enthusiasm. “Here's Cap'n Eri! Well, Cap, how's she headin'?” “'Bout no'theast by no'th,” was the calm reply. “Runnin' fair, but with lookout for wind ahead.” “Hain't got a spare chaw nowheres about you, have you, Cap'n?” anxiously inquired “Bluey” Batcheldor. Mr. Batcheldor is called “Bluey” for the same reason that Mr. Wixon is called “Squealer,” and that reason has been forgotten for years. Captain Eri obligingly produced a black plug of smoking tobacco, and Mr. Batcheldor bit off two-thirds and returned the balance. After adjusting the morsel so that it might interfere in the least degree with his vocal machinery, he drawled: “I cal'late you ain't heard the news, Eri. Web Saunders has got his original-package license. It come on the noon mail.” The Captain turned sharply toward the speaker. “Is that a fact?” he asked. “Who told you?” “See it myself. So did Squealer and a whole lot more. Web was showin' it round.”