There was a tangle of pink string; two stumpy pencils without points; a fragment of fish-line; a soiled scrap of court-plaster; a box of matches; a plug of tobacco; a red bandanna handkerchief; three cough-drops, moist and sticky; several screws; a worn tube of paste; a jack-knife.
"My soul, Eph!" ejaculated Zenas Henry. "You're a reg'lar travelin' junk shop, ain't you?"
"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.
"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.
"Now there's no use in all you fellers volunteerin'," Eleazer Crocker asserted. "I'm goin' straight over to Marcia's, as it happens, soon's I've et my dinner, an' I'll take the telegram."
With an air of authority, he held out his hand.
Yet notwithstanding their acquiescence, Zenas Henry, not to be awed into subjection, had the temerity to add:
"Remember, though, Eleazer, you ain't to go off the mainland without leavin' the key to the engine-house where we can get it. We've no hankerin' to be burnt alive while you're philanderin' at The Widder's."
"Hang it on the peg inside Benjamin Todd's fish shanty as you go by," called another voice.
"I'll do that," Eleazer agreed as he pocketed the telegram.
Early afternoon found Marcia alone in the Homestead sitting-room.
A driftwood fire flickered upon the hearth, for although spring was on the way, the large, high-studded rooms were not yet entirely free of winter's chill and dampness.