The post-office was at Eldredge's store, and Eldredge's store, situated at the corners, where the Main Road and the Depot Road--which is also the direct road to South Denboro--join, was the mercantile and social center of Denboro. Simeon Eldredge kept the store, and Simeon was also postmaster, as well as the town constable, undertaker, and auctioneer. If you wanted a spool of thread, a coffin, or the latest bit of gossip, you applied at Eldredge's. The gossip you could be morally certain of getting at once; the thread or the coffin you might have to wait for. I scarcely know why I went to Eldredge's that morning. I did not expect mail, and I did not require Simeon's services in any one of his professional capacities. Possibly Lute's suggestion had some sort of psychic effect and I stopped at the post-office involuntarily. At any rate, I woke from the trance in which the encounter with the automobile had left me to find myself walking in at the door. The mail was not yet due, to say nothing of having arrived or been sorted, but there was a fair-sized crowd on the settees and perched on the edge of the counter. Ezra Mullet was there, and Alonzo Black and Alvin Baker and Thoph Newcomb. Beriah Doane and Sam Cahoon, who lived in South Denboro, were there, too, having driven over behind Beriah's horse, on an errand; that is, Beriah had an errand and Sam came along to help him remember it. In the rear of the store, by the frame of letter boxes, Captain Jedediah Dean was talking with Simeon. Alvin Baker saw me first and hailed me as I entered. “Here's Ros Paine,” he exclaimed. “He'll know more about it than anybody else. Hey, Ros, how many hired help does he keep, anyhow? Thoph says it's eight, but I know I counted more'n that, myself.” “It's eight, I tell you,” broke in Newcomb, before I could answer. “There's the two cooks and the boy that waits on 'em--” “The idea of having anybody wait on a cook!” interrupted Mullet. “That's blame foolishness.” “I never said he waited on the cooks. I said he waited on them--on the family. And there's a coachman--” “Why do they call them kind of fellers coachmen?” put in Thoph. “There ain't any coach. I see the carriages when they come--two freight cars full of 'em. There was a open two-seater, and a buckboard, and that high-wheeled thing they called a dog-cart.” Beriah Doane laughed uproariously. “Land of love!” he shouted. “Does the dog have a cart all to himself? That's a good one! You and me ain't got no dog, Sam, but we might have a couple of cat-carts, hey? Haw! haw!” Thoph paid no attention to this pleasantry. “There was the dog-cart,” he repeated, “and another thing they called the 'trap.' But there wan't any coach; I'll swear to it.” “Don't make no difference,” declared Alvin; “there was a man along that SAID he was the coachman, anyhow. And a big minister-lookin' feller who was a butler, and two hired girls besides the cooks. That's nine, anyhow. One more'n you said, Thoph.”