“Ye see Obadiah knows all baout it,” said Abner. “He keeps kumpny with the Fennell gal, as is tew the Hamlins. He got it straight's a string, didn't ye, Obadiah?” “Yes,” said Obadiah, “it's all jess so. Thar ain't no mistake.” No incident of the insurrection had taken such hold on the popular imagination as the appeal of Desire Edwards to Perez for protection. It was immensely flattering to the vanity of the mob, as typifying the state of terror to which the aristocrats had been reduced, and all the louts in town felt an inch the taller, by reason of it, and walked with an additional swagger. The demand for the details of the scene between Perez and Desire was insatiable and Obadiah was called on twenty times a day to relate to gaping, grinning audiences just how she looked, what she did, and said, and what Perez said. The fact that Obadiah's positive information on the subject was limited to a few words that Prudence had dropped, made it necessary for him to depend largely on his imagination to satisfy the demands of his auditors, which accounts for the slight discrepancy between the actual facts as known to the reader and the popular version. After everybody had haw hawed and cracked his joke over Obadiah's last repetition of the anecdote, Peleg observed: “I dunno's az a feller kin blame Perez fer givin intew her. The gal's derned hansum, though she be mos' too black complected.” “She ain't none tew black, not to my thinkin,” said Widow Bingham, looking up from her knitting as she sat behind the bar,--the widow herself was a buxom brunette--“but I never did see anybuddy kerry ther nose quite so high in all my born days. She don't pay no more 'tension to common folks 'n if they wuz dirt under her feet.” “Whar's Meshech Little, ter night?” inquired Israel Goodrich, not so much interested as the younger men in the points of young women. “He's been drunk all day,” said Obadiah, who always knew everything that was going on. “Whar'd he git the money?” asked some one. “Meshech don' need no money tew git drunk,” said Abner. “He's got a thirst ontew him as'll draw liquor aout a cask a rod orf, an the bung in, jess like the clouds draws water on a hot day. He don' need no money, Meshech don' tew git soaked.” “He hed some, he hed a shillin howsumever,” said Obadiah. “Deacon Nash give it tew him fer pitchin rowen.” “I hain't been so tickled in ten year,” said Israel, “ez I wuz wen Deacon come roun tidday a offerin a shillin lawful tew the fellers tew git in his rowen fer him. It must hev been like pullin teeth fer Deacon tew pay aout cash fer work seein ez he's made his debtors dew all his farmin fer him this five year, but he hed tew come tew 't, fer his rowen wuz a spilin, an nary one o' his debtors would lif a finger 'thout bein paid for 't.”