In order to beguile the monotony of waiting she hunted up the blank-book in which she had begun to write "The Life Story of Gallant Captain Aaron Sproul." She read the brief notes that she had been able to collect from him and reflected with bitterness that there was little hope of securing much more data from a man tied up with the public affairs of a town which exacted so much from its first selectman.
Upon her musings entered Cap'n Sproul, radiant, serene. He bent and kissed her after the fashion of the days of the honeymoon.
"Whew!" he whistled, sitting down in a porch chair and gazing off across the blue hills. "It's good to get out of that steam and stew down in that hall. I say, Louada Murilla, there ain't in this whole world a much prettier view than that off acrost them hills. It's a good picture for a man to spend his last days lookin' at."
"I'm afraid you aren't going to get much time to look at it, husband." She fondled her little book and there was a bit of pathos in her voice.
"Got all the time there is!"
There was a buoyancy in his tones that attracted her wondering attention.
"They wouldn't accept that resignation," he said with great satisfaction. "It was unanimous. Them yaller dogs never showed themselves. Yes, s'r, unanimous, and a good round howl of a hurrah at that! Ought to have been there and seen the expression on Hiram's face! I reckon I've shown him a few things in politics that will last him for an object-lesson."
"I suppose they'll want to keep you in for life, now," she said with patient resignation. "And I had so hoped—"
She did not finish. He looked at her quizzically for a little while and her expression touched him.
"I was intendin' to string the agony out and keep you on tenter-hooks a little spell, Louada Murilla," he went on. "But I hain't got the heart to do it. All is, they wouldn't accept that resignation, just as I've told you. It makes a man feel pretty good to be as popular as that in his own town. Of course it wasn't all love and abidin' affection—I had to go out last night and temper it up with politics a little—but you've got to take things in this world just as they're handed to you. I stood up and made a speech and I thanked 'em—and it was a pretty good speech."