And before him was Hiram guiding the grotesque elephant between the great silver poplars before Squire Phin’s lonely home. CHAPTER III--FROM THE MOUTH OF MARRINER AMAZEEN “Narrer to the heel and wide to the toe, And that’s the way the Look boys go. Good boy Phin, he don’t raise time, But pepper-sass’s hot and hell’s in Hime.” --Old Palermo “Plaguin’ Song.’’ When Marriner Amazeen plodded down street early next morning, he found Uncle Lysimachus Buck perched in solitary and surly state on the platform of Brickett’s store. A thick-foliaged maple tree shielded the platform as long as the sun was low in the east, and the platform was a desirable post of observation, since it commanded the Cove and the fishing fleet, as well as the village square. “You’ve been el’phunteerin’, hey, along with the rest of the fools in the place?” sneered Uncle Buck as Amazeen grunted down beside him on the platform. “Well, I called in to see how Hime had got settled, if that’s what your slur means,” retorted Amazeen with some resentment. Silence fell upon them for a time. “Where’s he put old Cabbage-leaf-ear?” asked Uncle Lysimachus at last. “None of your dum bus’ness. Go see!” The silence endured longer. “I didn’t mean nothin’ to rasp your feelin’s, ‘Mad’!” his old friend apologised at last. “All is, I pus’nally don’t want to go peekin’ so like sin and Sancho, same’s the people in this place us’ly do when anything comes to town that ain’t cut and dried. I’d really like to know, though, how things is gittin’ squared ’round up to the Squire’s.” Amazeen remained sullenly silent, but his desire to gossip conquered his spleen at last.