"What's goin' to become o' the 'Herald' and the party in this district?
Where's the man to run either of 'em now. Like as not," he concluded
desperately, "the election'll go against us in the fall."
Dibb Zane choked over his four fingers. "We might's well bust up this
dab-dusted ole town ef he's gone."
"I don't know what's come over that Cynthy Tipworthy," said the landlord.
"She's waited table on him last two year, and her brother Bud works at the
'Herald' office. She didn't say a word--only looked and looked and looked
--like a crazy woman; then her and Bud went off together to hunt in the
woods. They just tuck hold of each other's hands like----"
"That ain't nothin'," Homer Tibbs broke in. "You'd ort to've saw old Miz
Hathaway, that widder woman next door to us, when she heard it. He had
helped her to git her pension; and she tuck on worse 'n' anything I ever
hear--lot worse 'n' when Hathaway died."
"I reckon there ain't many crazier than them two Bowlders, father and
son," said the postmaster, wiping the drops from his beard as he set his
glass on the bar. "They rid into town like a couple of wild Indians, the
old man beatin' that gray mare o' theirn till she was one big welt, and he
ain't natcherly no cruel man, either. I reckon Lige Willetts better keep
out of Hartley's way."
"I keep out of no man's way," cried a voice behind him.
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