A chorus of voices cried: “Hello, Sam!” and a place was made for him so he could thaw out his almost frozen fingers.
“It's mighty cold, ain't it?” said his father.
“Well, I should smile,” replied Sam. This expression he had heard the last time he was in the city, and he derived great pleasure from its repetition.
“How's Tilly?” asked Bob Wood.
“Able to be up and have her bed made.”
All laughed at the rejoinder. Smiles and laughter are easily evoked in a village grocery.
Mr. Obadiah Strout and Mr. Hiram Maxwell, general partners, were in the private office, a small room adjoining the post-office. Mr. Strout was smoking a cigar and reading a letter between the puffs. Hiram, with his chair tilted back against the wall, was smoking his after-supper pipe, for it was after seven o'clock in the evening.
“Mr. Maxwell,” said Obadiah, laying down the letter he had been reading, “this is from the trustees of the estate of the Honourable Quincy Adams Sawyer, formerly our special partner, and the ex-Governor of this Commonwealth. I mention the fact of him being our former special partner first, before I said anything about his political elevation, for I don't believe, Mr. Maxwell, that he would ever have been Governor if he hadn't jined in with us.”
Mr. Strout always called Hiram “Mr. Maxwell,” when they talked over business affairs.
Hiram blew a cloud from his pipe. “Wall, I guess they're putty well satisfied with what we've been doin', ain't they?”