"Queer enough; you may say that. His name was Starks; the boys used to call him Starksification. We did hate him, that's a fact. I'll tell you what he did to a black boy of ours--you know our black Sam, Alice?--I forget what he had been doing; but Starks took him so, by the rims of the ears and danced him up and down upon the floor." "But didn't that hurt him?" "Hurt him! I guess it did! he meant it should. He tied me under the table once. Sometimes when he wanted to punish two boys at a time he would set them to spit in each other's faces." "Oh, don't tell me about him!" cried Ellen, with a face of horror; "I don't like to hear it." Jenny laughed; and just then the door opened and Mr. Van Brunt and the old news-carrier came in. He was a venerable, mild-looking old man, with thin hair as white as snow. He wore a long snuff-coloured coat, and a broad-brimmed hat, the sides of which were oddly looped up to the crown with twine; his tin horn or trumpet was in his hand. His saddle-bags were on Mr. Van Brunt's arm. As soon as she saw him Ellen was fevered with the notion that perhaps he had something for her, and she forgot everything else. It would seem that the rest of the company had the same hope, for they crowded round him shouting out welcomes and questions and inquiries for letters, all in a breath. "Softly, softly," said the old man, sitting down slowly; "not all at once; I can't attend to you all at once; one at a time--one at a time." "Don't attend to 'em at all till you're ready," said Miss Fortune; "let 'em wait." And she handed him a glass of cider. He drank it off at a breath, smacking his lips as he gave back the glass to her hand, and exclaiming, "That's prime!" Then taking up his saddle-bags from the floor, he began slowly to undo the fastenings. "You are going to our house to-night, ain't you, Father Swaim?" said Jenny. "That's where I _was_ going," said the old man; "I _was_ agoing to stop with your father, Miss Jenny; but since I've got into farmer Van Brunt's hands, I don't know any more what's going to become of me; and after that glass of cider I don't much care. Now, let's see, let's see--'Miss Jenny Hitchcock,' here's something for you. I should like very much to know what's inside of that letter, there's a blue seal to it. Ah, young folks, young folks!" Jenny received her letter amidst a great deal of laughing and joking, and seemed herself quite as much amused as anybody. "'Jedediah B. Lawson,'--there's for your father, Miss Mimy; that saves me a long tramp, if you've twenty-one cents in your pocket, that is; if you ha'n't, I shall be obleeged to tramp after that. Here's something for 'most all of you, I'm thinking. 'Miss Cecilia Dennison,' your fair hands--how's the Squire? rheumatism, eh? I think I'm a younger man now than your father, Cecilly; and yet I must ha' seen a good many years more than Squire Dennison; I must surely. 'Miss Fortune Emerson,' that's for you; a double letter, ma'am."