"Was you Robinson Crusoe, you'd never have call for any such mess of truck as this. Where's the map?"
"Must be in my breast pocket," replied the mail-carrier, thrusting his hand inside his pea-coat. "My eye! If I ain't forgot that telegram!" he abruptly exclaimed. "The station-master at Sawyer Falls gave it to me when he handed out the mail. It clean went out of my mind."
"A telegram!" came in chorus from his audience. "Who for?"
"It's for that chap Heath who's stayin' over at The Widder's."
"Hadn't you been wool-gatherin' you might 'a' given it to Sylvia to take back with her. She was here only a little while ago," Silas Nickerson said.
"I know it."
"S'pose I was to take it over," Elisha Winslow suggested eagerly. "I'm willin' to."
"Fur's that goes, I can carry it," Captain Phineas Taylor piped.
"Give it to me, Eph, an' I'll see it's landed there within half an hour," proposed Benjamin Todd, elbowing his way forward.