A year had brought some changes. Mrs. Maxwell mourned the loss of her son Obadiah, who had been gored by an angry bull and found dead in the West pasture. For a wonder, Mr. Strout showed some sympathy, perhaps because the little boy was his namesake. The Rev. Caleb Howe had passed away. In his place the church had called the Rev. Hudson Quarles, a bachelor of forty, whose hobby was fancy fowls. He joined the Grange and talked on “Poultry Raising” and “A Small Fortune in Squabs.” His hens were the heaviest for their age in the community, and to prove it he was always willing to “weigh up” at the grocery store. Mr. Strout called him a crank and played a joke on him that led to a division in the church and came near costing Mr. Strout his position as organist. There were two scales on the long grocery counter. Mr. Strout tampered with one of them by affixing two pounds of lead to it which he covered with gold paint to hide the deception. Bob Wood's hen was weighed in the fraudulent scales and beat Mr. Quarles' by a half pound, the clergyman's being really a pound and a half the heavier. The plot would have been a success but for the keen-eyed Quincy who examined the scales and discovered the imposition. Mr. Strout declared it was all a joke and that he was going to own up when he got ready to do so. This explanation was accepted by some and scoffed at by others. Naturally, Mr. Strout looked upon Quincy as a meddler. “By Godfrey!” he exclaimed to Hiram, “either that Sawyer boy or me has got to leave town.” “When are yer goin'?” asked Hiram, quietly, but he got no reply. Miss Dixie Schaffer retired from the stage and settled down. Her mother-in-law, being an invalid confined to her room, prevented any interference in her household affairs, and she was free from suggestions as to what she should give, and what she shouldn't give her son, who had been named Hugh after her own father. Many new people had moved into the town. Among the newcomers was a former detective on the Boston police force named Horace Dana. Through an injury received in making an important arrest, he had become a cripple, able to get around only slowly and with crutches. He was a widower with one daughter, about fifteen years of age, named Mary. The young lady was as old in appearance as many girls of eighteen, and her looks so belied her age, that the village beaux paid court to her at once. Her most persistent suitor was young Bob Wood who had just reached his majority. As she was walking one day in the Center Road, far from any dwelling, she met Bob. He improved the opportunity by asking her to be his wife. “Why, Mr. Wood, I'm too young to marry.” “But I'm just old enough,” said Bob, “and you suit me exactly.” “Mr. Wood, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm not yet fifteen years old. Father says I can't have a beau till I'm eighteen, and I'm sure I don't want one.”