"And as if that wasn't enough, there's talk of Sam Ellis's selling the hotel and going out of business. It seems since the two boys and the girl came back from college they've talked nothing but temperance and prohibition. Not that they are a mite ashamed of Sam. But not one of them will step into the hotel for love or money. And Sam's beginning to think as they do, seems like. For they say he was awful mad when he heard about Jim Tumley getting so full he was sick. Sam was out that afternoon and he says Curley Watson, his barkeeper, is a danged chucklehead. And that ain't all. They're saying that Sam told George Hoskins to let up on the drinks the other night, that maybe he could stand it but other men couldn't. And Sam the hotel keeper, mind you! Of course Sam is well off but still the men haven't got over it yet. They say you could have heard a pin drop and that George stood with his mouth open for five full minutes. "Somebody told John Gans that there was going to be another barber shop in town and so he's excited. And Mr. Pelly and Mrs. Dudley had their first fight this year over their chickens. Mr. Pelly swears she lets them out a-purpose before he's awake in the morning and Mrs. Dudley says that if he don't mend his fence and hurts a feather of a single one of her animals she'll have him before Judge Hewitt. "Of course, Marion Travers is spending every cent of her husband's salary on new clothes, trying to get in with the South End crowd. And Sam Bobbins has given up trying to raise violets to make a sudden fortune. He's changed his mind and gone to raising mushrooms down in his cellar. Simpson's gray horse is dead, the lame one, and one of the White twins cut his head pretty bad on a toy engine and Benny Smith's wife is giving strawberry sets away. Jessups are all out of tomato plants and onion sets and won't get any more, but Dick has them, besides a real tasty looking lot of garden seed. Ella Higgins actually found that Dick had two kinds of flower seed that she'd never grown or heard of. "Mrs. Rosenwinkle's full of rheumatism with all joints swelled and says the world is coming to a terrible end. I guess she figures though that she and those two grandchildren of hern will be about all that's left after the thing blows over. My land, ain't some folks ignorant! And--what was I going to say--oh, yes, of course Robinson ain't expected to live--and well--what _was_ it I was going to say--something that begins with a c--good land, there's the 6:10 and I bet John's on it. He never misses his train twice in a year's time. Get out of here, children. You know your father wants to see you all at home when he gets there."