“‘Kalapoosas County elects Republican Sheriff for first time in history of party.’ That isn’t so good, but it’s only one out of ten thousand.” “‘Four hundred and six townships in New Hampshire show a net Democratic loss of--’ pshaw! there ain’t nothing in that! Wait till the other towns are heard from!” So Abner read on and on, slapping his thigh with his free hand whenever anything specially good turned up. And there was a great deal that we felt to be good. The State had been carried. Besides our Congressman, many others had been elected in unlooked-for places--so much so that the paper held out the hope that Congress itself might be ours. Of course Abner at once talked as if it were already ours. Resting between paragraphs, he told Hurley and the others that this settled it. The war must now surely be abandoned, and the seceding States invited to return to the Union on terms honorable to both sides. Hurley had assented with acquiescent nods to everything else. He seemed to have a reservation on this last point. “An’ what if they won’t come?” he asked. “Let ’em stay out, then,” replied Abner, dogmatically. “This war--this wicked war between brothers--must stop. That’s the meaning of Tuesday’s votes. What did you and I go down to the Corners and cast our ballots for?--why, for peace!” “Well, somebody else got my share of it, then,” remarked Hurley, with a rueful chuckle. Abner was too intent upon his theme to notice. “Yes, peace!” he repeated, in the deep vibrating tones of his class-meeting manner. “Why, just think what’s been a-goin’ on! Great armies raised, hundreds of thousands of honest men taken from their-work an’ set to murderin’ each other, whole deestricks of country torn up by the roots, homes desolated, the land filled with widows an’ orphans, an’ every house a house of mournin’.” Mrs. Beech had been sitting, with her mending-basket on her knee, listening to her husband like the rest of us. She shot to her feet now as these last words of his quivered in the air, paying no heed to the basket or its scattered contents on the floor, but putting her apron to her eyes, and making her way thus past us, half-blindly, into her bedroom. I thought I heard the sound of a sob as she closed the door. That the stately, proud, self-contained mistress of our household should act like this before us all was even more surprising than Seymour’s election. We stared at one another in silent astonishment. “M’rye ain’t feelin’ over’n’ above well,” Abner said at last, apologetically. “You girls ought to spare her all you kin.” One could see, however, that he was as puzzled as the rest of us. He rose to his feet, walked over to the stove, rubbed his boot meditatively against the hearth for a minute or two, then came back again to the table. It was with a visible effort that he finally shook off this mood, and forced a smile to his lips.