Mr. Jonas Hawkins took him out to see the hens and chickens, and told him that he “kalkilated that mos' on 'em eggs that was bein' sot on would hatch out.” Quincy's great delight was going with Hiram in the grocery wagon. One day they went over the same road from the Pettingill farm to Eastborough Centre that his father had travelled so many times.
The old sign board “Three Miles to Mason's Corner” was still there, but how changed the other conditions. No consumptive uncle in the Poor House, no philosophical Uncle Ike living in a chicken coop, no inquisitive Mrs. Putnam, no mysterious Lindy, no battle royal with the music teacher, no town meeting to engineer, no grocery store to buy, no Deacon's daughter to go driving with, no singing school, no surprise party, no blind girl to comfort and aid--and finally marry.
There were none of the incidents that had made his father's life at Mason's Corner so exciting and interesting. Now, there was only a little boy riding in a red wagon with yellow wheels, inhaling the pure air and sweetness of the wild flowers, listening to the songs of birds, and wishing that Uncle Hiram would make the horse go faster.
It is safe to leave him with his father's friends, for surely his lines had fallen in a pleasant place.
It was February and the air was stinging cold. It was one of those nights such as Lowell wrote about in “The Courtin'.”
“God makes sech nights, all white an' still Fur'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten.”
In the store of the Strout and Maxwell Company quite a number of the town's people were gathered about the big air-tight stove which was kept stuffed full of wood by willing hands and from which came great waves of almost scorching heat.
Such congregations of villagers are often said to be composed of loafers and loungers, but it was not so at Fernborough. The men who represented the brains and marrow of the town met there. It was the home of the town debating society and supplied a free forum for the discussion of public questions. If the advanced ideas in statesmanship and social economy incubated there could have become the property of the nation, our country would have grown wiser and better.