"Brether—I—I would say, gentlemen, we have met to recommend a postmaster for this village, in the room of Israel Nudd, diseased. What is your pleasure in this matter? I s'pose Homer'd ought to have it, hadn't he?"
The conclave meditated. No one had the smallest doubt that Homer ought to have it, but it was not well to decide matters too hastily.
"Homer's none too speedy," said Abram Cutter. "He gets to moonin' over the mail sometimes, and it seems as if you'd git Kingdom Come before you got the paper. But I never see no harm in Home."
"Not a mite," was the general verdict.
"Homer's as good as gingerbread," said Salem Rock, heartily. "He knows the business, ben in it sence he was a boy, and there's no one else doos. My 'pinion, he'd oughter have the job."
He spoke emphatically, and all the others glanced at him with approval; but there was no hurry. The mail would not be in for half an hour yet.
"There's the Fidely," said Seth Weaver. "Goin' up river for logs, I expect."
A dingy tug came puffing by. As she passed, a sooty figure waved a salutation, and the whistle screeched thrice. Seth Weaver swung his hat in acknowledgment.
"Joe Derrick," he said. "Him and me run her a spell together last year."
"How did she run?" inquired John Peavey.