He did not "take," however, but gravely replied that they had turned out stacks of boards since the mill was started, and that they had thought of keeping it running nights as well as days.
As I could conceive of no very direct connection between a saw mill and a post-office, and not caring to have too much saw dust thrown in my eyes, nor to countenance any log-rolling operation, I moved off toward the store again. But not a word was volunteered about the "factory," so I marched straight over to it, and trying one of the main doors, found it all fast as I had suspected. I was about to repeat the attempt at another part of the building, but the post master had now arrived on the ground, and his reluctant explanation saved me further trouble on that head at least.
"Owing to the hard times, it is not occupied now, but until lately it has employed some thirty or forty hands. They'll get agoing again soon, and intend to employ some eighty workmen. The suspension is only temporary."
"Worse off than the hat factory of which you spoke, at the other village," I observed. He made no reply.
Finding I could obtain no independent conveyance by which to make the tour of observation through the other parts of the town, I accepted the offer of a young man who drove up to the store very opportunely, to whom the idea was suggested by the post master, and who, it was hinted, was in no way identified with this vexatious dispute.
During the first mile or so of our ride his neutrality seemed well sustained, but it began rapidly to disappear as we came in sight of the village which had been bereft of its post-office as well as its post master, his answers to my questions betraying a decided bias toward the "let well enough alone" policy as applicable in this case.
I did not propose to stop there at this time, but to pass through to the upper village,—but my suspicions that I had after all committed myself to the temporary keeping of one of the friends of the new sites, were fully confirmed when I found him taking a narrow by-way through the old settlement, poorly calculated to show off the place to much advantage.
"Look here," said I, "don't go through this hollow, but take a turn round by those spires, and let me see what they have got to brag about."
Coming to a halt, and backing round in a somewhat spiteful manner, during which manœuvre we came near upsetting, he soon came upon the route indicated.
Whether from a conviction that there was no use in trying to cheat me any longer, or from the study requisite for the invention of some new system of tactics likely to be more successful, he said but little more during the rest of our ride.