Among the hearers was Mr. Crupp, and no one seemed more deeply interested and affected. He followed the funeral cortege to the cemetery; but, arrived there, he halted at the gate, instead of following the example of the multitude by crowding as closely as possible to the grave. The final services were no sooner concluded, however, than the object of Mr. Crupp’s unusual conduct became apparent to one person after another, the disclosure being made to people in the order of their earthly possessions. The parson was shocked at learning that Mr. Crupp was importuning every man of means to take stock in a woolen mill, to be established at Barton; but a whispered word or two from Crupp caused the parson to abate his displeasure, and finally to stand near Crupp’s side and express his own hearty approbation of the enterprise proposed. Then Mr. Crupp whispered a few words to Squire Tomple, and the Squire subscribed a hundred shares at ten dollars each, information of which act was disseminated among business men and well-to-do farmers by Parson Wedgewell with an alacrity which, had modern business ideas prevailed at Barton, would have laid the parson open to a suspicion of having accepted a few shares, to be paid for by his own influence. Then Deacon Jones subscribed twenty shares, and Judge Macdonald, Fred’s father, promised to take fifty; Crupp’s name already stood at the head of the list for a hundred. No stock-company had ever been organized at Barton before, and the citizens had always manifested a laudable reluctance to allow other people to handle their money; but this case seemed an exception to all others; confidence in the enterprise was so powerfully expressed, alike by the mercantile community, the bar, the church, and the unregenerate (the last-named class being represented by the ex-vender of liquors), that people who had any money made haste to participate in what seemed to them a race for wealth with the odds in everybody’s favor. Crupp neglected no one; he scorned no subscription on account of its smallness; before he left the cemetery gate nearly half the requisite capital had been pledged, and before he slept that night he found it necessary to accept rather more than the twenty thousand dollars which, it had been decided two days before, would be needed. Several days later a board of directors was elected; two or three of the directors informally offered the superintendency of the mill to Fred Macdonald, on condition that he would pledge himself to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverage while he held the position, and then Fred was elected superintendent in regular form and by unanimous vote of the board of directors.