There was never any good news for him now.
“Hain't heard who 's elected town-clerk?”
“No.”
Had they elected Eliphalet, and so expressed their settled distrust of him, and sympathy for the man whom he had injured?
“Who is elected?” he asked harshly.
“You be!” said the man; “went in flyin',—all hands clappin' and stompin' their feet!”
An hour later the doctor drove up, stopped, and walked toward the kitchen door. As he passed the window, he looked in.
Eph was lying on his face, upon the settle, as he had first seen him there, his arms beneath his head.
“I will not disturb him now,” said the doctor.
One breezy afternoon, in the following summer, Captain Seth laid aside his easy every-day clothes, and transformed himself into a stiff broadcloth image, with a small silk hat and creaking boots. So attired, he set out in a high open buggy, with his wife, also in black, but with gold spectacles, to the funeral of an aunt. As they pursued their jog-trot journey along the Salt Hay Road, and came to Ephraim Morse's cottage, they saw Susan sitting in a shady little porch at the front door, shelling peas and looking down the bay.