Abner and Hurley marched up to the polls without a word to anyone, or any sign of recognition from the bystanders. Their appearance, however, visibly awakened the interest of the Corners, and several young fellows who were standing on the grocery steps sauntered over in their wake to see what was going on. These, with the ticket-peddlers, crowded up close to the window now, behind our two men. “Abner Beech!” called the farmer through the open pane, in a defiant voice. Standing on tiptoe, I could just see the heads of some men inside, apparently looking through the election books. No questions were asked, and in a minute or so Abner had voted and stood aside a little, to make room for his companion. “Timothy Joseph Hurley!” shouted our hired man, standing on his toes to make himself taller, and squaring his weazened shoulders. “Got your naturalization papers?” came out a sharp, gruff inquiry through the window-sash. “That I have!” said the Irishman, wagging his head in satisfaction at having foreseen this trick, and winking blandly into the wall of stolid, hostile faces encircling him. “That I have!” He drew forth an old and crumpled envelope, from his breast-pocket, and extracted some papers from its ragged folds which he passed through to the inspector. The latter just cast his eye over the documents and handed them back. “Them ain't no good!” he said, curtly. “What's that you're saying?” cried the Irishman. “Sure I've voted on thim same papers every year since 1856, an' niver a man gainsaid me. No good, is it? Huh!” “Why ain't they no good?” boomed in Abner Beech's deep, angry voice. He had moved back to the window. “Because they ain't, that's enough!” returned the inspector. “Don't block up the window, there! Others want to vote!” “I'll have the law on yez!” shouted Hurley. “I'll swear me vote in! I'll—I'll—” “Aw, shut up, you Mick!” someone called out close by, and then there rose another voice farther back in the group: “Don't let him vote! One Copperhead's enough in Agrippa!” “I'll have the law—” I heard Hurley begin again, at the top of his voice, and Abner roared out something I could not catch. Then as in a flash the whole cluster of men became one confused whirling tangle of arms and legs, sprawling and wrestling on the ground, and from it rising the repellant sound of blows upon flesh, and a discordant chorus of grunts and curses. Big chunks of icy mud flew through the air, kicked up by the boots of the men as they struggled. I saw the two posts with the board weave under the strain, then give way, some of the embattled group tumbling over them as they fell. It was wholly impossible to guess who was who in this writhing and tossing mass of fighters. I danced up and down in a frenzy of excitement, watching this wild spectacle, and, so I was told years afterward, screaming with all my might and main.