“Well, this young fellow won't,” cried Hiram, hotly. “He's goin' to be a great man like his father, won't you, Bub?”
“Bub” took a handful of raisins from an open box, and eyed his questioner wonderingly.
“There's many a slip 'twixt the cow and the churn,” said Mr. Strout as he took a ten cent cigar from the case and lighted it. Perhaps the sight of the son recalled a scene in the same shop many years before on Quincy's first visit to Mason's Corner when a box of cigars had been the subject of an animated discussion between the boy's father and himself, followed by a passage-at-arms—or, more correctly speaking—fists. We humans are only veneered with politeness or good nature; underneath, man's revengeful nature lies dormant—but not dead.
Mrs. Hawkins was delighted to see him. “Olive, don't you think he's the likeness of his father?”
Olive agreed, because she had found that agreement with her employer's opinions made life pleasant, and also led to many desirable additions to her wardrobe.
Mrs. Hawkins surveyed him again. “I'll never forget what a poor appetite his father had when he boarded here. He never came to his meals reg'lar. But he was in love, head over heels an' an extry dip,—an' I don't blame him, for 'Zeke Pettingill's sister was good enough for any man, even if he did git to be guv'nor. Have a cookey?” and Quincy's pockets were filled with cakes that contained raisins and citron.
“Them's seedless raisins, Quincy. I had a boarder once, a reg'lar hayseed who came down here from Montrose to work hayin' time, an' he asked me how I got the stuns out of the raisins. Jes' to fool him, I said I bit 'em out, an' do you know, that old fool never teched another bit o' cake while he stopped here.”
Mr. Jonas Hawkins took him out to see the hens and chickens, and told him that he “kalkilated that mos' on 'em eggs that was bein' sot on would hatch out.” Quincy's great delight was going with Hiram in the grocery wagon. One day they went over the same road from the Pettingill farm to Eastborough Centre that his father had travelled so many times.
The old sign board “Three Miles to Mason's Corner” was still there, but how changed the other conditions. No consumptive uncle in the Poor House, no philosophical Uncle Ike living in a chicken coop, no inquisitive Mrs. Putnam, no mysterious Lindy, no battle royal with the music teacher, no town meeting to engineer, no grocery store to buy, no Deacon's daughter to go driving with, no singing school, no surprise party, no blind girl to comfort and aid—and finally marry.
There were none of the incidents that had made his father's life at Mason's Corner so exciting and interesting. Now, there was only a little boy riding in a red wagon with yellow wheels, inhaling the pure air and sweetness of the wild flowers, listening to the songs of birds, and wishing that Uncle Hiram would make the horse go faster.