Poquit House dinners. No, it’s no dream. The Major was just in and he says his mind is made up. That settles it, don’t it? You wouldn’t contradict the all-wise mouthpiece of Providence, would you, Cap’n Zeb?"

I never said anything—not then. I was realizin’ that, if I wanted Mary Blaisdell to be postmistress at Ostable—which was the inspiration I was took with when I looked back at her from the hill—I’d got to do somethin’ besides say. I’d got to work and work hard. And even at that my work was cut out from the small end of the goods. To beat Major Cobden Clark in a political fight was no boy’s job. But Abubus Payne! Abubus Payne postmaster at Ostable!! Think of it! Maybe you can; _I_ couldn’t without stimulants.

You see, this critter Abubus—did you ever hear such a name in your life?—had lived around ’most every town on the Cape at one time or another. He and his wife wa’n’t what you’d call permanent settlers anywhere, but had a habit of breakin’ out in new and unexpected places, like a p’ison-ivy rash. He worked some at carpenterin’, when he couldn’t help it, but his main business, as you might say, had always been lookin’ for an easier job. In Ostable he’d got one. He was caretaker and general nurse of Major Cobden Clark. His wife, who was about as shiftless as he was, was the Major’s housekeeper.

And the Major? Well, the Major was a star, a planet—yes, in his own opinion, the whole solar system. He was big and fleshy and straight and gray-haired and red-faced. He belonged to land knows how many clubs and societies and milishys, includin’ the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston and the Old Guard of New York. He had political influence and a long pocketbook and a short temper. Likewise he suffered from pig-headedness and chronic indigestion. ’Twas the indigestion that brought him to Ostable and Abubus; or rather ’twas his doctor, Dr. Conquest Payne, the celebrated food and diet specializer—see advertisements in ’most any newspaper—who sent him there. Abubus was Doctor Conquest’s cousin and I judge the two of ’em figgered the Clark stomach and income as things too good to be treated outside of the family.Anyway, the spring afore I landed in Ostable, down comes the Major, buys a good-sized house on the lower road nigh the water front, hires Abubus and his wife to look out for the place and him, and settles down to the simple life, which wa’n’t the kind he’d been livin’, by a consider’ble sight. But he lived it now; yes, sir, he did! He lived by the clock and he ate and slept by the clock, and that clock was wound up and set accordin’ to the rules prescribed by Dr. Conquest Payne, 

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