“Waal,” said Eli, hesitating, “the folks down ter my house tuk some thought o’ his’n whenst his trial an’ imprisonment war goin’ on, an’ I reckon he feels thankful. Marcelly air one o’ them kind ez can’t rest enny ef she ’lows ennybody air hongry, or lackin’ ennywise; an’ she toted ’em gyardin truck whenst they never planted, an’ holped ’em sew an’ weave whenst they hed no heart ter work. It’s the natur’ o’ Marcelly.” Jepson stood with his hands in his pockets, his brows contracting heavily over his blue eyes, that the candidate’s daughter had thought so cruel and yet so deep. His hat was drawn down over his face, and the shadow of the beech-tree, circumscribed nearly to its minimum by the almost vertical sunshine, was soft upon it. He turned mechanically when others joined the group, and he listened with frowning displeasure to the suggestions of defeat that seemed somehow to be suddenly and bountifully deduced. “I be powerful afeard I hev flung my vote away on ye, Eli,” said Gideon Dake. “I never looked ter see ye hev sech a backer ez Jake Baintree,” with a jeering glance. “An’ some others say the same.” “An’ yit,” said Jepson, feeling keenly the instability of popular sentiment, “the t’other day, whenst I purvented him from gittin’ baptized ’mongst the saints, a body would hev ’lowed ez haffen the church members couldn’t rest easy in the fold ’thout Jake Baintree ’mongst ’em. Sech a haulin’ over the coals ez I got! An’ now ye ain’t willin’ fur him ter jine ye at the polls, whar the devil’s vote wouldn’t be challenged ef he hed been livin’ six months in the county.” Dake made no defense of this lack of logic on the part of the community, but fell to whittling a stick with a large clasp-knife, as he leaned against the bole of the tree. “That ain’t what makes me oneasy ’count o’ Eli,” put in an elderly grizzled wight with an air of pleasure in fetching cumulative disabilities into the prospect. “Eli hev been _too_ spry ez constable; he hev been _too_ keen ter pry inter the doin’s o’ folks agin the law. Now Nevins, he mought do the same, an’ then agin he moughtn’t. He hain’t been tried,—that’s the main chance. Nobody’s got no gredge agin him,—dunno nuthin’ ’bout his doin’s in office. But Eli, he hev been _too_ sharp-set ter administer the law.” “Look-a-hyar,” argued Jepson, “ye be a-takin’ arter the man fur doin’ of his jewty.” The elderly interlocutor prefaced his reply by an astute wink. “His jewty air ter _please_ the people, ef he wants ter git ’lected agin!”—a golden rule for incumbents. Jepson relapsed into moody silence, and this choice reasoner proceeded with an illustration in point:—