The store was store, post-office, and general news center combined. The news was at that very moment in process of circulation among the “boys”—a shirt-sleeved quorum from the patriarchs of the town circling the molasses-keg—the storekeeper himself topped it. They looked up as Patsy entered and acknowledged her “Good evening” with that perfect indifference, the provincial cloak in habitual use for concealing the most absolute curiosity. The storekeeper graciously laid the hospitality of his stool and counter and kerosene-lamp at her feet; in other words, he “cal’ated she was welcome to make herself t’ home.” All of which Patsy accepted. She spread out the newspaper on the counter in front of her; she unwrapped a series of small bundles—ink, pen, stamped envelope, letter-pad, and pen-holder, and eyed them with approval.
“The tinker’s a wonder entirely,” she said to herself; “but I would like to be knowing, did he or did the shopkeeper do the choosing?” Then she remembered the thing above all others that she needed to know, and swung about on the stool to address the quorum. “I say—can you tell me where I’d be likely to find a—person by the name of Bil—William Burgeman?”
“That rich feller’s boy?”
Patsy nodded. “Have you seen him?”
The quorum thumbed the armholes of their vests and shook an emphatic negative. “Nope,” volunteered the storekeeper; “too early for him or his sort to be diggin’ out o’ winter quarters.”
“Are you sure? Do you know him?”
“Wall, can’t say exactly ef I know him; but I’d know ef he’d been hangin’ round, sartin. Hain’t been nothin’ like him loose in these parts. Has there, boys?”
The quorum confirmed the statement.
Patsy wrinkled up a perplexed forehead. “That’s odd. You see, he should have been here last night, to-day at the latest. I had it from somebody who knew, that he was coming to Arden.”
“Mebby he was,” drawled the storekeeper, while the quorum cackled in appreciation; “but this here is a good seven miles from Arden.”