He waited until he saw the letter deposited in the mail slot in the post-office door. Then he clucked to the span and drove on.
It was not yet four o’clock when he reached Harniss. It occurred to him that Esther would not be at home when he got there; she would have gone to that Welfare Society meeting, or whatever it was. He did not feel inclined to sit alone in the library and think; memories of that confounded Boston attorney’s “if” were still too clear to make thinking pleasant. They angered him. What was the matter with the crowd over there in Ostable? What had become of all the assured complacency with which they had greeted him at similar consultations of but a year ago? Losing their grit, were they? Letting appeals and delays and all that sort of legal drivel get on their nerves? The case was as surely his now as it was then. Flock of old hens! With what delight would he, when the long-drawn-out mess was ended and the decision his, pay them off and send them packing. Bah!
He shook his head to drive away these symptoms of what he would have called the “doldrums,” looked up and saw that he was nearly opposite the Clark cottage. He would drop in on Reliance now, this minute. She was always a first-class antidote for doldrums.
He hitched the span to the gnawed post before the post office and walked around the buildings to the door of the millinery shop. Reliance was in the shop, making tucks in a yard of ribbon.
“Hello, there!” he hailed, striding in and closing the door behind him. “Well, how are things in the hat line? Thought I’d stop and see if you could make Varunas a sunbonnet. He’s getting to be more of an old woman every day he lives.”
Reliance looked up and smiled. “Hello, Foster,” she said. “You’re a stranger. It’s been a long while since you honored us this way. I hope a lot of folks saw you come in. It will be good for business. Sit down, won’t you?”
He had not waited for the invitation. He sat in the chair usually occupied by Miss Makepeace, which squeaked a protest, and tossed his hat upon the top of the sewing machine.
“All alone?” he queried. “Where’s your first mate?”
“Abbie? Oh, she’s at home with a cold. She has been barkin’ and sneezin’ around here for three days, so I told her to stay at home and sneeze it through with a hot brick at her feet and a linseed poultice on her chest. She’ll be over it pretty soon. How are you?”
“All right. Where’s the town superintendent?”