"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr. Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand."
"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas.
"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o' takin' the sense o' the meetin'."
"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently. "All gab an' no git there!"
"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity."
"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted fierceness:—
"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?"
"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno but I do."
"Might set a lantern back o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't," suggested Brad Freeman.
"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented Tom O'Neil irreverently.