Quincy answered quickly, "Why, certainly," and handed the slip to his left-hand neighbor, who chanced to be Miss Seraphina Cotton, who was the teacher in the public school located at Mason's Corner.
She prided herself on her elocutionary ability, and read the following with great expression:
"Though wealth and fame fall to my lot,
I'd much prefer a little cot,
In which, apart from care and strife,
I'd love my children and my wife."
Strout laughed outright.
"By the way, Mr. Sawyer," said he, "have you seen any little cot round here that you'd swap your Beacon Street house for?"
"I've got my eye on some real estate in this town," said Quincy, "and if you own it perhaps we can make a trade."
'Zekiel Pettengill passed his slip to Lindy Putnam; it ran thus:
"'An honest man's the noblest work of God,'
No nobler lives than he who tills the sod."
This was greeted with shouts and cries of "Good for 'Zeke!" while one of Cobb's twins, who possessed a thin, high voice, cried out, "He's all wool and a yard wide."