Sylvanus had spent six months in the United States, managing a gigantic business firm, he had hinted, from which enterprise he had returned to the parental roof, a sadder if not a wiser man, to take up the more lucrative employment of making cheese. He never quite outlived the glory of his travels, however. Coonie grunted. "You should a' stayed over there an' been President. They must be awful lonesome since you left. Any noos?" "Well, I should snicker if there wasn't! The master's got into an awful row!" His listener sighed deeply. What an opportunity this would have been to set his version of the story going! "What's eatin' him?" he asked with wonderful self-control. "Neil kids been lickin' him again?" "Worse nor that; he's got into a row with Splinterin' Andra!" "Gosh!" Coonie's amazement would have deceived a much more astute individual than Sylvanus Todd. "What's that old wind-mill got himself flappin' about now?" "About gettin' the organ for the Presbyterian church. Watson spoke to Splinterin' Andra about it an' the old fellow gave him Hail Columbia, as they say in the States." Mr. Basketful was coming out with the mall-bag. "It's true, every word of it, Coonie," he said, his wrath having vanished. "That's the way with them Presbyterians; they're that stiff they can't 'elp 'avin' trouble." Coonie scrambled into his buckboard, feeling doubly crippled in the galling restriction that had been put upon his unruly member. He drove off without a word, not even stopping at Mrs. Fraser's gate at the top of the hill. Syl Todd sat upon the veranda of the store, watching until his old buckboard sank behind the south hill, wondering if he were ill. Duncan had never before tried to exercise a restraining influence upon Coonie's tongue, though as he watched his old buckboard straying down into the valley, crossing and recrossing the road, to allow its owner to joke and gossip with this one and that, the Watchman often thought what a power for good Coonie might be in Glenoro if only his heart were touched by the grace of God. His first attempt at stemming the tide of the mail-carrier's gossip met with wonderful success, however. People discovered that for some inexplicable reason, Coonie seemed to have no interest whatever in Splinterin' Andra's behaviour over the proposal of an organ, and with the chief stoker idle, the fire of gossip soon died for want of fuel. The young people postponed their project indefinitely, and gradually the affair dropped out of the public interest, making way for a much more important matter. IV THE SECOND JOHN McALPINE