It is worth recording that Carmel did not weep a tear of disappointment, nor feel an impulse to walk out of the place and go the thousand miles back to Michigan to take the job of teaching English in the home high school. No. The only emotion Carmel felt was anger. Her eyes actually glinted, and a red spot made its appearance upon each cheek. She had arrived in Gibeon with a glowing illusion packed in her trunk; unkind fact had snatched it away and replaced it with clammy reality. She got up from her desk and walked into the shop, where Tubal was pretending to be busy. “Gibeon is the county seat, isn’t it?” she asked. “Yes ’m.” “How many people live here?” “We claim two thousand. Ol’ Man Nupley allowed the’ was four thousand in the township.” “Then” (her manner put Tubal in the wrong at once and compelled him to fumble about for a defense) “why have we only a little more than five hundred subscribers?” “Wa-al, one thing or another, seems as though. Folks never took to this paper much.... Mostly they take in the _Standard_ from over to Litchfield.” “Why?” Tubal shifted the blame to Gibeon. “Seems like this hain’t much of a town.... It’s a dum funny town. I guess folks didn’t set much store by this paper on account of Abner Fownes.” “Abner Fownes? Who is he, and what has he to do with it?” “Abner,” said Tubal, “comes clost to bein’ a one-man band. Uh huh!... Owns the saw mills, owns half of Main Street, owns the Congo church and the circuit judge and the selectmen, and kind of claims to own all the folks that lives here.... Ol’ Man Nupley was a kind of errand boy of his’n.” Carmel’s intuition carried her to the point. “And the people didn’t take this paper because they didn’t trust it. That was it, wasn’t it--because this Abner Fownes--owned Uncle Nupley.” “I calc’late,” said Tubal, “you’re twittin’ on facts....” He chuckled. “Las’ fall the folks kind of riz ag’in’ Abner and dum nigh trompled on him at election time. Yes, sir. Made a fight fer it, but they didn’t elect nobody but one sheriff. Good man, too.... But Abner was too slick for ’em and he run off with all the other offices.... He holds a chattel mortgage onto this plant.” “Is he a bad man?” “Wa-al I dunno’s a feller could call him bad. Jest pig-headed, like, and got the idee nobody knows nothin’ but him. _My_ notion is he gits bamboozled a lot. The Court House crowd tickles his ribs and makes him work for ’em. No, he hain’t bad. Deacon, and all that.” “The local politicians flatter him and make use of the power his money gives him, is that it?” “You hit the nail plumb on the head.” “Who is the _real_ boss?” “Wa-al now, that’s kind of hard to say. Kind of a ring. Half a dozen of ’em. Calc’late Supervisor Delorme is close to bein’ the queen bee.”